Basics of the Criminal Justice System
Basics of the Criminal Justice System
I. A System of Discretion
A. A basic element of our system is discretion at many levels of law enforcement
1) Police in whom to charge
2) Prosecutors in whom to prosecute, what to charge them with, and when to offer a plea bargain
B. Dangers of discretion
1) Unequal treatment
2) Use of political influence to get charges dropped
3) If a perception of unequal application, could lead to less adherence to the law
4) Potential for corruption
II. Evidence
A. Relevance requirement
1) In order to be relevant, evidence must be both probative and material.
a) Evidence is material only if the proposition it is offered to prove is one that will affect the outcome of the case under the applicable law.
b) Evidence is probative only if the material proposition is more likely to be true with the evidence than it would be without it.
B. Prejudicial evidence
1) Definition
a) Evidence that will affect the result in an improper way.
2) Evidence of bad character
a) The prosecution cannot present evidence that goes only to prove a defendant has a “criminal disposition” because its prejudicial effect outweighs its probative value.
b) People v. Zachowitz (N.Y. 1930) CB 22 – Murder conviction reversed because trial court should not have allowed prosecutors to introduce evidence that defendant had a collection of guns at home when trying to prove premeditation (the only issue in the case).
i) “Character is never an issue in a criminal prosecution unless the defendant chooses to make it one.”
ii) Cardozo distinguishes three hypothetical situations in which the evidence would have been admissible
• Pistols were bought in expectation of this incident – evidence of preparation and design
• Identity of killer in dispute, and the pistols tended to implicate D
1. The evidence would still be somewhat prejudicial, but the probative value would outweigh it.
• D actually carried the guns to the encounter
1. The fact of arming himself would be probative of preconceived design in a way that just owning the guns isn’t.
iii) Dissent argues that the gun evidence was relevant not because it showed a violent character, but because it showed he had the opportunity to arm himself, and he did.
3) Evidence of other crimes
a) From Zachowitz dissent and F.R.E. 404: Evidence of crimes by defendant not alleged in the indictment are inadmissible unless they tend to prove:
i) Motive (example: If D is on trial for murdering V, evidence that V witnessed D commit a robbery is admissible)
ii) Opportunity
iii) Intent
iv) Absence of mistake or accident
v) Preparation or plan
vi) Identity of the perpetrator
b) Even when evidence of other crimes falls within an exception (meaning it is offered not just to show character) its probative value still must outweigh its prejudicial effect.
4) Exceptions to the other-crimes rule
a) Signature crimes
i) Admissible if the other crimes are “so nearly identical in method as to earmark them as the handiwork of the accused”
• State v. Hills – Signature exception available only when the crimes are so “peculiarly distinctive that one must logically say they are the work of the same person.”
ii) The “Brides in the Bath” example on pg. 29
iii) May be admissible even if D was acquitted of earlier crime, as long as P can show a preponderance (Dowling v. U.S.).
b) Sex offenses
i) Congress amended the F.R.E. to make other-crimes evidence admissible in molestation and sex crime cases.
c) Impeachment
i) When D chooses to testify, other crimes evidence is generally allowed to impeach the testimony.
III. The Trial Process
A. Burden of Proof
1) Reasonable Doubt Standard
a) Now a constitutional due process requirement
b) Chevigny’s phrasing of the standard: Looking at all the evidence, do you have a doubt that can be explained in a rational way that leads you to think ∆ might not be guilty?
c) Why this standard in criminal law, but not in other contexts
i) Fear of the state as complainant
ii) Stigma attached to conviction has an enormous negative impact on your life in a way that losing a civil suit does not.
2) The state has the burden on every element. The defense has no burden of production at all.
B. The Right to a Jury
1) Duncan v. Louisiana (U.S. 1968) – Held that the Fourteenth Amendment gives defendants a right to a jury trial in state court, incorporating the Sixth Amendment guarantee, because it is fundamental to the American system of judgment.
a) Does not apply to “petty offenses”
i) At a minimum, the guarantee applies to any crime carrying a potential sentence of more than 6 months (Baldwin v. New York)
2) Why do we like juries so much?
a) They give a fresh perspective on the case, in contrast to a judge who might have seen so many guilty defendants that he no longer has an open mind.
b) They give more legitimacy to convictions, and take pressure off of the judge, who otherwise might be the target for angry losers.
3) In the federal system, defendant can’t waive a jury trial without consent of prosecution
IV. The State as a Party
A. Many of the protections for defendants in the criminal justice system (no character evidence, reasonable doubt standard, etc.) derive from the fact that the state is prosecutor.
B. As seen in the Yukon context, the state is needed in more heterogeneous societies to give legitimacy to judgments and to take the fear of retribution away from individuals.
General Principles of Criminal Law
I. Why Punish?
A. Overview
1) Retribution and reaffirming the norms are now the overriding reasons for punishment.
a) Deterrence and incapacitation remain influential, though to a somewhat lesser degree.
b) Rehabilitation is now almost completely discredited.
2) Federal sentencing guidelines demonstrate an effort to take discretion away from judges and to ensure just deserts for crimes.
B. Retributive theory
1) Just Deserts
2) Theory that punishment for crime is desirable in and of itself
3) Societal benefits
a) Reaffirms societal norms (i.e. reminds people that the crime is bad)
i) Regina v. Dudley and Stephens (1884) – Sailors who killed and ate crewman while stranded without food guilty of murder
ii) State v. Cheney (Alaska 1970) CB 143 – One year sentences for rape reversed largely because they could lead to a public impression that rape is not a serious crime.
• Making the crime especially arrogant, and so more blameworthy, is that he lied about it.
iii) This is an element of utilitarianism in a supposedly purely blame-based approach.
b) Symbolic way of getting vengeance
c) Burden-balancing theory (criminal got an advantage from crime, so we make him pay back)
4) This is the principal justification for punishment these days.
C. Utilitarian theories
1) Deterrence
a) General Deterrence
i) Data shows that ratcheting up the certainty of punishment is more effective than increasing the potential penalties.
ii) U.S. v. Bergman (S.D.N.Y. 1976) CB 140 – Rabbi convicted of Medicaid fraud given prison sentence mainly for reasons of deterrence
• Court assumes that this kind of crime – very deliberate, continuing, committed for profit – is the most easily deterred by stiff penalties
• Also just deserts, reaffirming the norms rationale: the court wants to send the message that this is a serious crime.
• Rejects defense argument that the beating he took in the press should be treated as punishment already inflicted.
• Raises an important moral detention in the deterrence theory: a longer sentence might have an extra deterrent effect (especially where ∆ is prominent) but that utilitarian benefit may require inflicting a punishment longer than the crime actually “deserves”
1. Kant argues that this tension makes utilitarian goals morally wrong.
b) Specific Deterrence
i) Aimed at deterring the particular criminal from offending again.
2) Incapacitation
a) Effective at keeping career criminals from acting again, but raises tricky proportionality problems
b) Seen in three-strikes and habitual offender statutes
i) U.S. v. Jackson (7th Cir. 1987) CB 146 – Life sentence permissible for man who committed an armed robbery on the day he was let out of prison on a work-release program.
a. Easterbrook for the court says sentence may have been harsh, but its not reviewable b/c within the statutory range for a career criminal. It was reasonable to give a life sentence because of the great need for incapacitation
b. Posner concurs but says he would have given a lower sentence, because while Jackson would certainly commit another robbery if released now, but probably not if released in 25 to 30 years b/c bank robbery is a young man’s game.
i. Leaves only the possible justification of general deterrence, which Posner says is unlikely to work because bank robbery inherently an irrational crime.
ii. Concludes that “a civilized society locks up such people until age makes the harmless but it does not keep them in prison until they die.”
3) Rehabilitation
a) Out of favor because it doesn’t work and it can lead to proportionality problems.
i) If we have rehabilitation as a goal, that could justify holding someone much longer than “just deserts” require.
4) Moral education
a) Criminal law can be a tool for educating the public on what’s right or wrong, but only on the margins. If the law goes too far, the public starts to reject it (e.g. prohibition or drug laws)
5) Restorative justice
a) Experimental approach that puts offenders and victims together to deal with their issues and may work better at reintegrating offenders into society.
b) Seems to work especially well with crimes where the offender really wants to be reintegrated (e.g. family and business crimes)
D. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines
1) Generally
a) Grew of Congressional disenchantment with judicial discretion in sentencing
i) liberals worried that discretion led to discrimination
• Successful in that it removes disparities in sentencing for people who commit the same crime
• Discrimination remains, however, in disparities in sentencing for crimes that are similar in blameworthiness, but disproportionately committed by different races (e.g. lower mandatory sentences for possession of powdered cocaine than for crack)
ii) conservatives worried that judges were letting criminals off too lightly
b) Key features
i) Abolished parole, reduced the availability of probation, allows appeal of sentences by prosecution.
ii) Starts by setting a heartland sentence for each crime
• That sentence can be adjusted upward or downward based on certain factors related to the crime and the defendant’s criminal history
• Four categories of possible factors for departure from heartland
1. Forbidden factors: race, sex, national origin, creed, religion, socio-economic status, economic hardship, substance dependency and “lack of guidance as a youth” can never be used.
2. Encouraged factors: Include things like victim provocation
a. Judges have discretion to take these into account unless the heartland for the particular crime already takes it into account
2) U.S. v. Koon (1996) – Supreme Court clarifies how courts should use their discretion to depart from heartland sentences under the federal guidelines in case against two of the cops who beat Rodney King for excessive force
a) Holding: A court has discretion to depart from the sentencing guidelines only when features of the case take it outside of heartland of similar cases contemplated by the sentencing commission.
i) Review of district court sentencing decisions is on an abuse-of-discretion standard.
b) Four-step analysis district courts must use when considering a departure
i) What features of the case take it out of the heartland?
ii) Are these forbidden factors?
iii) If not, are they encouraged factors?
iv) If not, are they discouraged factors?
c) On specific downward departures (mitigating circumstances) that the 9th Circuit had found improper
i) Victim provocation
• Reinstated this one because it is an explicit encouraged factor and it was outside the heartland of excessive force, which dealt primarily with unprovoked assaults.
ii) Future employment effects
• No good, because since a conviction for a crime where a public official uses his authority to violate rights almost always hurts employment prospects this is already taken into account in the heartland sentence
iii) Low likelihood of recidivism
• No good, because first offender crimes already assume a low risk of recidivism
• Note, however, that a high risk of recidivism is grounds for upward departure.
iv) Likelihood of abuse in prison
• Reinstated because the notoriety of their crimes means they will suffer more, and the district court was within its discretion to decide that that would make the time they serve worse.
1. Dissent argues that this means the more notorious the crime, the less culpable the offender
2. Nobody raises the elephant in the room – why do we accept the fact that there will be horrible abuse in prison and we can’t do anything about it?
v) Successive prosecutions (state then federal)
• Reinstated because of the burden placed on defendants
d) Recent opinions have made guidelines discretionary, but still widely used.
II. What to Punish?
A. The essence of crime is a harm done to society.
1) The individual victim basically drops out of the process, and cannot consent to being harmed or refuse to prosecute
a) We think society has an interest in righting the injustice (and creating an atmosphere of justice) beyond what the individual victim wants.
i) Letting crime go unpunished can make crime more prevalent
b) The person may not want to prosecute because he feels humiliated, and humiliation is one of the results of crime that society wants to vindicate.
2) The strongest cases are the ones where there is an immediate victim and a threat of reoccurrence, because that’s when society’s desire for vengeance is highest
3) Victimless crimes, are crimes nonetheless, however, because they do harm to society.
B. Legislatures can punish just about anything they choose, within some constitutional limits
1) Because the limits are so few, the question of what to punish generally comes down to a policy choice.
a) Morality can be the basis, but the justification is generally stronger when the drafters can point to some sort of harmful effect on society (this position brings the Souters on board).
b) While private conduct can be criminalized, it is easier to justify criminalizing something on moral grounds the more public it gets.
i) As the public nature of the crime shrinks, and the problem of enforcement increases, the state’s interest in criminalizing dwindles.
ii) NYPL 235 – New York has decided its not worth criminalizing things like obscenity if their not public.
iii) NYPL 240 – Includes a number of relatively minor offenses that are offenses against the public order.
2) Barnes v. Glen Theatre (1991) – Supreme Court upholds Indiana statute banning public nudity in private clubs.
a) Plurality opinion and concurrences offer three different justifications
i) Rehnquist: Public nudity is malum per se, whether the legislature chooses to criminalize it or not, and it being held inside a club is irrelevant.
ii) Scalia: Public nudity is malum prohibitum, and that’s OK. If the state has determined that this is immoral, then it is justifiable to punish it even if the only people who see it are there by choice.
iii) Souter: Whether this conduct is immoral or not, the legislature had a basis for criminalizing it because of the harmful effect it causes to society, by attracting an unsavory element to a part of town. These effects harm more that just the patrons of the club.
III. Limits on What Can Be Punished – Legality
A. The statutory requirement
1) In nearly every U.S. jurisdiction, acts are criminal only if prescribed by statute.
a) Shaw v. Director of Public Prosecutions (1962) – Conviction of man who published an advertising booklet for prostitutes, whose business had been legalized in private, on the grounds that it was just immoral couldn’t have happened in the U.S.
B. Judicial enlargement of criminal statutes (the fair notice requirement)
1) Courts cannot read a criminal statute in a way that extends liability unless such a construction of the statute would be foreseeable.
a) Keeler v. Superior Court (Cal. 1970) – Man who assaulted ex-wife to induce miscarriage could not be prosecuted for murder of the fetus, because the legislature had not made that a crime.
i) Says that the state intended the meaning of “human being” in its definition of murder to incorporate the common law meaning at the time of enactment, and that for the definition to change, the legislature would have to so decide.
ii) Rationale is based in separation of powers and the fear of ex post facto laws that don’t give a chance for people to order their conduct.
iii) Judicial alterations to statute open the door to discriminatory application
• Cites Bouie case, where black teens were convicted of trespassing after the state supreme court used a new construction of the statute that covered their actions. SCOTUS reversed, reasoning that the state court construction was unforeseeable and didn’t give fair warning to the defendants.
1. Key difference there was that the defendants were not engaging in immoral conduct, whereas Keeler surely was. The court said no matter, bad people get due process rights as well.
iv) Dissent argues that the reading of human being to include fetuses was not unforeseeable because terms like human being evolve with scientific advancements and understanding.
• Compares to the way the definition of “corpse” has changed with modern life-saving techniques.
b) Some degree of uncertainty is inevitable, however, particularly when one of the elements of the crime calls on the jury to evaluate a level of degree.
i) Nash v U.S. – Holmes writes that there’s no constitutional problem with the fact that a person might think his conduct only will be punished as manslaughter, but a jury then determines its murder.
C. Unconstitutional vagueness
1) Statutory definitions of crimes must be sufficiently definite (1) to give people adequate notice of what conduct it prohibits and (2) to confine the discretion of law enforcement.
a) City of Chicago v. Morales (1999) – Statute directing police to disperse groups of people “loitering” in public where at least one suspected gang member is present, and to arrest anyone who refuses to disperse was unconstitutionally vague.
i) Problem here was the definition of the term loitering (“to remain in any one place with no apparent purpose”) which failed both parts of the test
• It doesn’t give people notice of what will be considered loitering (what is an apparent purpose?) or when they are within their rights to disregard the order to disperse
• It leaves room for law enforcement to apply it selectively.
ii) Plurality opinion
iii) Concurrence by O’Connor says the law could have been saved had it defined loitering more narrowly.
• This apparently leaves loitering laws unconstitutional unless combines with some other overt act or evidence of criminal intent (some sort of mens rea)
• Chicago rewrote the statute to include a requirement that the circumstances of the loitering “would warrant a reasonable person to believe” that the purpose or effect was to establish gang dominance.
1. This probably makes it constitutional, because it gives some guidance to people in shaping their conduct.
iv) Dissent by Thomas says loitering is no less vague than other allowable terms like fraud, bribery and perjury, and that police always have discretion, and that’s OK so long as the law gives them some guidance.
• Also says that this is a bunch of rich people throwing out a law that allows poor people to safely leave their homes, in the name of protecting gang members’ rights.
The Basis of Criminal Liability
I. Actus Reus (The Criminal Act)
A. Generally
1) Some act, or omission where there is a duty to act, is required for criminal liability.
a) You’re punished for doing something, not for being something.
b) NYPL 15.10 – “The minimal requirement for criminal liability is the performance by a person of conduct which includes a voluntary act or the omission [where there is a legal duty] to perform an act which he is physically capable of performing.
B. The voluntary act requirement
1) Rule: If you acted involuntarily, you cannot be convicted as a matter of law.
a) Rationale
i) If an act is committed involuntarily, then it is not blameworthy, and it cannot be deterred, so there is no justification for punishment.
2) Martin v. State (Ala. 1944) – Conviction for drunkenness on a public highway overturned because police had brought him from his home to the public place.
a) Court said the statute required the appearance in public to be voluntary.
3) People v. Newton (1970) – Conviction of Huey Newton for manslaughter of police officer remanded for new trial because judge failed to give jury instruction on unconsciousness.
a) Newton claimed that he had blacked out during the time of the shooting, and that his act was involuntary
4) Problem cases
a) The sleepwalking case: A mother killed her daughter while sleepwalking; she was acquitted because her act couldn’t have been voluntary.
i) Might be a different case if it could be shown that she knew she was prone do doing things like that while asleep.
b) Compare People v. Decina (1956) -- ∆ who crashed his car and killed someone during an epileptic fit was “culpably negligent” under New York law because he knew he was prone to seizures.
i) Here the act was not the crash, it was choosing to drive in light of the risk.
C. Omissions
1) Rule: An omission is not a sufficient actus reus for criminal liability except in cases where the law has imposed a duty to act.
a) NYPL 15.00 – Omission means a failure to perform an act as to which a duty is imposed by law.
b) Situations in which failure to act may count as actus reus:
i) Statute imposes a duty of care
ii) Special relationship (parent to child, master to apprentice, innkeeper to customers etc.)
iii) Contractual duty
iv) Voluntarily assumed duty of care that prevents others from rendering aid
v) Where you created the peril that that leads to the need for you to act
• If you accidentally knock someone who can’t swim into a pool, you do have a duty to dive in to save them.
2) Statutory duty
a) Pope v. State (Md. 1979) CB 183 – Conviction for child abuse and misprision of felony overturned for woman who gave shelter to a mentally ill woman and her child and then didn’t intervene when the woman severely beat the child to death.
i) Court says she took the two in as a good Samaritan, and that in that context she had no legal duty to report a crime she didn’t contribute to.
ii) Statute only made omission an actus reus for child abuse for parents, adoptive parents, people acting in loco parentis, or people responsible for supervision of a child. Had Pope fallen into one of these categories, she would have been guilty of child abuse.
• Even though the mother may have been obviously incapable of caring for the child, the law can’t force the mother to make a subjective judgment of when she should become responsible for caring for the child.
• “She may not be punished as a felon under our system of justice for failing to fulfill a moral obligation, and the short of it is that she was under no legal obligation.”
iii) Also throws out the common law crime of misprision of felony (not reporting a crime), and says that if the state legislature wants to make that a crime, it can.
3) Duties carried over from civil context
a) Jones v. U.S. (1962) CB 190 – Conviction for involuntary manslaughter for woman who failed to feed a baby who was placed with her reversed and remanded for new trial because judge failed to instruct the jury that the prosecution had the burden of proving a duty of care.
b) Note cases where duty was found to exist
i) Regina v. Stone and Dobinson (1977) – Man and his housekeeper/mistress properly convicted of manslaughter where they didn’t properly rare for his anorexic sister
ii) People v. Oliver (Cal.App. 1989) – Woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter on a criminal negligence theory where she brought a man home from a bar, gave him a spoon to shoot up heroin, left him there and then didn’t call the cops until after he was dead.
4) The medical context
a) A doctor does not have a legal duty to continue treatment if doing so would have no reasonable benefit to the patient.
b) Barber v. Superior Court (Cal.App. 1983) CB 1999 – Complaint against doctors who unplugged a vegetative patient at the request of the family dismissed because the doctors were under no legal duty to continue treatment.
i) The court says that turning off the machines is not an act that kills a patient, it’s just stopping heroic efforts in the face of a certainty that the treatment isn’t going to cure him.
ii) A doctor may have a duty to provide life-sustaining measures in the immediate aftermath of the event that caused the patient’s condition, the duty stops “once it has become futile in the opinion of qualified medical personnel.”
• “A physician has no duty to continue treatment once it has proven to be ineffective.”
iii) If the person turning off the machine was someone else, someone with a bad motive like a greed heir, however, we would probably think of this as an act, rather than an omission.
c) There is a vibrant debate in the legal and ethical community over the true moral difference between euthanasia and stopping heroic treatment.
II. Mens Rea (The Criminal State of Mind)
A. Generally
1) Philosophy
a) In most cases, we do not want to punish based solely on a criminal act – as a default position we require some guilty state of mind.
i) Default rule is that the prosecution must prove some guilty state of mind for each element of the crime, though statutes often leave unclear what state of mind is required.
ii) NYPL 15.15(1) – When only one mental state is specified in the definition of a crime, that mental state is presumed to apply to every element of the crime unless there is a clear intent to limit its application.
iii) NYPL 15.15(2) – “A statute defining a crime, unless clearly indicating a legislative intent to impose strict liability, should be construed as defining a crime of mental culpability.”
iv) Regina v. Cunningham (1957) CB 204 – Man who while robbing gas meter of coins accidentally released gas could not be convicted of poisoning neighbor because the prosecution did not present evidence of intent or recklessness with regard to the second crime.
• Unless the legislature so specifies, the prosecution must prove mens rea for each crime charged. It is not enough that plaintiff intended to commit the smaller wrongful act.
• Regina v. Faulkner (1877) CB 206 – Sailor who while stealing rum accidentally set a ship on fire could not be convicted for arson because it was purely accidental, so he had no guilty state of mind.
b) In some particular cases, crimes or elements thereof will be strict liability – requiring no state of mind at all – but an inference that an element requires no state of mind will generally rest on policy considerations.
2) The four levels
a) Purpose/Intent
i) You actually mean to do the thing
b) Knowledge
i) Something short of intent, although they often bleed together
• Difference is between a man who wills something to happen (intent) and another who is merely willing to have it take place.
• In most cases, knowledge will be enough, but some crimes require a “true purpose”
ii) Willful blindness can sometimes equal knowledge if the prosecution can show a conscious purpose to avoid learning the truth.
• MPC: Knowledge can be inferred where ∆ (1) is aware of a high probability that a fact exists and (2) does not have a sincere belief that the fact does not exist.
• U.S. v. Jewell (9th Cir. 1976) CB 220 – Drug courier convicted even though the prosecution could not prove that she actually knew the car was carrying marijuana;, although she knew someone had put something in a compartment, she never looked to see what was in there.
1. Knowledge of the drugs was a required element under the statute.
2. Prosecution must prove that if ∆ was not actually aware…his ignorance was solely and entirely the result of a conscious purpose to avoid learning the truth.
3. Kennedy’s dissent notes that the “conscious purpose” instruction gets too close to recklessness, and so the instruction should have included the two requirements from the MPC.
a. The instruction also should make clear that that the finding under the MPC standard is that for all intents and purposes the defendant knew. A truly ignorant defendant “can’t provide the basis for criminal liability when the statute requires knowledge.”
b. “A proper jury instruction based on the Model Penal Code would be presented as a way of defining knowledge, and not as an alternative to it.”
c) Recklessness
i) You are aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk and you still run it.
• Even a substantial risk may be created without recklessness, if the purpose of the act is proper, such a surgeon who operates knowing that there is a high risk the patient will die, but that the patient will almost certainly die without the surgery as well.
• MPC: Recklessness requires awareness of a substantial and unjustifiable risk, and that the risk be of a nature and degree that disregarding it is a gross deviation from the standard of conduct a law-abiding person would observe in the person’s situation.
d) Criminal Negligence
i) You should have been aware of the risk (but weren’t), and you still run it.
• Not always easy to distinguish from recklessness, but can have huge consequences in terms of punishment.
• Criminal negligence is higher than civil negligence. It’s more than mere carelessness.
1. Defined as when ∆’s failure to perceive a substantial and unjustifiable risk is a gross deviation from the care that would be exercised by a reasonable person in the same situation.
2. Santillanes v. New Mexico (N.M. 1993) – In case where 7-year-old cut in the neck during knife fight, conviction reversed because court gave instruction on civil negligence.
3) When analyzing a criminal statute ask:
a) What are the elements of this crime?
b) What state of mind goes with each of those elements?
i) When no state of mind stated for an element, do not assume strict liability. In New York, apply the state of mind specified for the other elements.
ii) Where multiple states of mind stated, have to inquire into the reason the element is there, what it adds to the definition of the crime.
• If deterrence is the goal, the state of mind required drops.
B. Mistake of Fact and Strict Liability
1) Doctrine
a) NYPL 15.20(1): Mistake of fact is a defense when it negatives the mens rea required for conviction.
i) This formulation is based on the Model Penal Code.
ii) Some states (e.g. PA) additionally require that the mistake be reasonable.
• In analyzing a mistake of fact issue, first figure out whether the jurisdiction has a reasonableness requirement.
b) In some cases, the legislature will elect to make elements strict liability.
i) Where legislative intent on mens rea is ambiguous, courts will consider several factors.
• The scope of the risk of the conduct (how dangerous?) or of the underlying crime
• Whether you’ve engaged in an inherently dangerous activity
• Protection of a class of persons (e.g. police officers)
• Severity of the penalty (the more severe, the more likely a court will require mens rea)
• Desire to ratchet up deterrence
• Difficulty of proving state of mind
• Complexity of the particular area of law (e.g. the tax code)
• presence of an alternative system of regulation (which makes the goal of the statute achievable without conviction
• malum prohibitum or mala in se?
1. Note especially sale of goods regulations.
2) State v. Kelly (W. Va. 1985) CB 361 – Conviction for larceny reversed where ∆ wrongly believed the fixtures he was removing from abandoned houses belonged to his partner.
a) Taking the property “without consent of the owner” is a required element of larceny, and where a ∆ takes the property in a good faith belief that he has that consent, he does not have the guilty state of mind necessary for conviction.
b) Doesn’t address the issue of the reasonableness of the mistake.
3) Attendant circumstances
a) Regina v. Prince (1875) CB 226 – ∆’s mistaken belief that the girl he was absconding with was 16 was not a defense against “taking a girl from her father without consent” crime because it did not negate the necessary mens rea.
i) Prince is guilty because he was aware that he was doing the act, what he was unaware of was the attendant circumstance of her age, which the court says interprets as a strict liability element.
• Mistake of fact would have been a defense on other elements of the crime, such as if he thought he had the father’s consent, because then he would be unaware that he was doing the act itself.
ii) Essentially, the court is saying that in the context of this statute, if you run off with an unmarried girl without the father’s consent, you run the risk that she’ll turn out to be underage.
iii) Unlike Cunningham and Faulkner, there’s no underlying crime here with unforeseeable consequences, but there is an underlying moral wrong apparently.
• Also in this vein is White v. State (Ohio App. 1933) Where ignorance of wife’s pregnancy was not a defense for a man in conviction for violation of statute prohibiting abandonment of pregnant wife. Idea there is that leaving your wife is wrong, and you run the risk of her being pregnant.
iv) Chevigny calls this an extreme outlier case, and academic opinion runs against it.
• Dan-Cohen’s theory of decision rules and conduct rules an interesting explanation
4) Strict Liability
i) U.S. v. Balint (1922) CB 236 – Prosecution did not need to prove that ∆s knew they were selling prohibited drugs because the Court read the legislative intent of the statute as calling for strict liability.
• Reasons that Congress intended for sellers of drugs to ascertain at their peril whether what they were selling was prohibited, and Congress preferred the injustice of people without guilty minds being punished than people with guilty minds going unpunished.
• Notes that this is frequently a feature of regulatory crimes, where the goal is social betterment rather than the punishment of mala in se crimes.
ii) U.S. v. Dotterweich (1943) – Upheld conviction of pharmaceutical executive for misbranding even though he did not know the drugs were misbranded.
• This is again a regulatory crime, and the Court found that Congress intended to put the burden of learning the facts on the seller.
• Another factor at play here is the difficulty of proving state of mind. It would be difficult for a prosecutor to prove knowledge here, so requiring this element would undermine the regulatory scheme.
• Also, in a sale of goods case like this one, there’s a feeling that the seller has the better opportunity to discover the misbranding than does the public.
iii) Morissette v. U.S. (1952) CB 237 – Reverses conviction for man who took what he thought were abandoned shell casings because his mistake of fact negated an implicit mens rea requirement – knowledge that the casings were government property.
• Statute prohibited “knowingly converting government property.” The court interpreted “knowingly” as applying both to “converting” and to “government property.”
• Court distinguishes Balint and Dotterweich in that this is not a regulatory crime aimed a protecting the public welfare; it’s just a fancy form of stealing, a property crime, and a sincere mistake of fact as to the status of the property is always a defense unless explicitly stated otherwise in the statute.
• Also, this crime carries a massive penalty ($10,000 fine and 10 years in jail) and courts generally presume that serious felonies require a guilty state of mind.
iv) Staples v. U.S. (1994) CB 241 – Conviction for violation of law making possession of unregistered firearm a 10-year felony reversed for man who said he didn’t know his gun had been altered in a way that brought it under the statutory definition of firearm.
• Government argues that this is a regulatory offense and gets strict liability, but Thomas says no for a few reasons.
1. Severity of penalty – Congress can’t be presumed to have meant to lock people up for 10 years who were ignorant of a key fact.
2. Buying a gun is commonplace and has a long history of legality, not an inherently questionable act (like Prince) where people can be held to proceed at their peril.
3. Deterrence as a policy doesn’t apply here, because the point of the law isn’t to deter people from owning guns in general, only these especially dangerous guns (again unlike Prince where we want to deter people from running off with unmarried girls regardless of age).
• Counterarguments that could suggest Congress wanted strict liability.
1. Firearms as defined by statute are especially dangerous.
2. Difficulty of proving knowledge.
3. This is a statute aimed at protecting the public welfare and is essentially a regulatory offense.
• Note also U.S. v. X-Citement Video which found a mens rea requirement as to the element of age in a statute prohibiting the sale of child pornography.
a) Reasonable care defense to strict liability crimes?
i) Regina v. Sault Ste. Marie (Canada 1978) CB 249 – Recognizes an affirmative defense (burden on ∆) that due care was used in strict liability crimes.
• This runs contrary to the trend in U.S. jurisdictions, where strict liability crimes are becoming more common.
C. Mistake of Law
1) Rule and rationale
a) Mistake of law regarding the law actually charged is no defense, but mistake as to a point of law other than the one charged can be a defense if it negatives the required mens rea.
i) NYPL 15.20(2)
ii) People v. Marrero (N.Y 1987) CB 255 – Federal prison guard convicted of violating concealed weapon statute despite mistakenly believing that he fell under an exception for peace officers that a split appellate court said did not cover him.
• Quotes Holmes: “to admit the excuse at all would be to encourage ignorance where the lawmaker has determined to make men know and obey.”
• Where the statute as written actually permits the conduct, but a court later invalidates the statute, mistake of law would be a defense, but that is not the case here, where the appellate court was interpreting, not invalidating, the statute.
• Dissent argues that the majority is inaccurately reading the New York statute, which he argues does cover Marrero’s defense.
b) The rule does not apply where the law you’re ignorant of is outside the scope of the criminal law. Then it is just an element of the crime, and ignorance of it can negative the required mens rea.
i) Regina v. Smith – Conviction reversed for man who tore up flooring and walls of apartment to get the wiring he had put in mistakenly thinking that under the property laws, he owned what he had put in.
• Reflected in MPC 2.04(1)
• Justification for this is that here the law you are mistaken about is just part of the attendant circumstances, and it functions just like a mistake of fact.
• As Chevigny puts it, sometimes other legal concepts get drawn into the criminal law , but it is not the purpose of the criminal law to enforce those concepts.
ii) Key question in assessing whether this exception applies is to ask what the purpose of the statute is
• State v. Woods – Woman charged with adultery where she thought the man she was sleeping with had legally gotten a divorce in Nevada probably has a defense because the norm being reinforced there is preventing cohabitation. She’s not saying she didn’t know cohabitation was illegal.
2) Mistake of law defense in statutes requiring higher mens rea
a) Ignorance of the law is a defense where the statute by its terms requires that a person know of the existence of the prohibition.
i) Cheek v. U.S. (1991) – Man who did not file a tax return was entitled to a jury instruction on mistake of law based on his claim that he did not think wages were income because of a willfulness requirement, but not on his claim that the tax laws were unconstitutional.
• When a statute requires a willful violation, the prosecution has the burden of proving (1) a duty, (2) that ∆ knew of the duty, and (3) that ∆ voluntarily and intentionally violated the duty.
• Cheek’s claim that he didn’t think his wages were covered must be refuted by the prosecution, because it calls into question whether he knew of the duty.
1. Even though this belief is objectively unreasonable it still gets to the jury (where presumably the jury will not credit it).
• His claim that he thought the income tax unconstitutional is no defense, because even if he truly believed it, he knows that Congress says he has to pay, and he chooses not to.
1. If he really wants to challenge the law, he can do so in court.
• Reasons for requiring a higher state of mind in tax offenses
1. Not a dangerous activity
2. Complexity of the law (Congress wants to be careful not to lock up people who were trying to follow the law but messed up)
3. There’s an alternative regulatory system for getting the results – the criminal system is not the default option.
b) Harder question is deciding when “knowingly” or “willfully” applies to awareness of the statute and its meaning, rather than only to the act that violates it.
i) Considerations seem to be similar to those reflected in strict liability – whether the underlying activity is dangerous.
• Also, not wanting to read the statute so broadly that it would criminalize innocent conduct.
ii) U.S. v. International Minerals (1971) – In crime requiring person to “knowingly violate” a regulation regarding the transportation of corrosive liquids, Court held ∆ needed only to knowingly commit the acts, whether or not he knew of the regulation.
• Part of the reason here may be the danger of the underlying activity (implies that Congress intended awareness of the statute to be a strict liability element)
iii) Liparota v. U.S. (1985) – In statute making it a crime to “knowingly” transfer food stamps, Court read the required knowledge to be knowledge of the regulation, because otherwise a whole bunch of stuff would be criminal, and Congress couldn’t have intended that.
• Key here seems to be that the underlying act is basically innocent, so the knowledge has to refer to knowledge of the criminality.
iv) Ratzlaf v. U.S. (1994) – Man who agreed to pay off gambling debt in installments so that the casino would have to report the transaction acquitted of “structuring” as the Court read the statute to require knowledge that his actions were criminal, not just knowledge of the reporting requirement.
v) Bryan v. U.S. (1998) – In conviction for “willfully” dealing in firearms, Court says ∆ had to have knowledge that conduct was unlawful, but didn’t have to know of the statute under which he was charged.
3) The official statement defense
a) If you’re told by someone with authority that you have a legal right to do something, then you can’t be criminally liable for doing it.
i) NYPL 15.20: Mistake of law defense available when mistake is based on an official statement in a statute, administrative order, judicial decision, or statutory interpretation by an official.
b) U.S. v. Albertini (1987) CB 268 – Protest on naval base by man after his conviction was reversed by Ninth Circuit on First Amendment grounds, but before the Supreme Court reinstated the conviction could not be grounds for a second conviction because he was relying on the official statement of a court.
i) Court leaves open whether he could have been prosecuted a second time had his second round of protests happened after the SCOTUS granted cert.
ii) Rationale for the rule is a fear of official entrapment (and also a sort of ex post facto problem).
iii) Note the Hopkins case from Maryland that rejected this defense. Chevigny thinks it was wrongly decided.
c) Supreme Court held in Raley v. Ohio (1959) that to convict someone for conduct that government representatives had told him in an official capacity was lawful amounts to “entrapment by estoppel” in violation of due process.
4) The “Cultural Defense”
a) Question over whether it could be defense for someone to say he the criminal act committed was acceptable in their home culteres?
i) Arguments in favor are that it offers individualized justice, and furthers a commitment to cultural pluralism
ii) Problem is that part of the reason for the criminal law is reinforcing norms of the community, and that doesn’t allow room for everyone to have their own set of norms.
III. Proportionality
A. Philosophy
1) Bentham: For deterrence purposes, we want to punish more serious crimes more heavily than less serious crimes, so that when a criminal is confronted with a choice of the two, he’ll choose the less serious one.
a) If there’s no difference in punishment, a criminal will just go for the easiest one, or the one that brings the most gain, which might be the one more harmful to society.
b) NYPL 160 → Robbery with a toy gun is second degree, while robbery with a real gun is first degree. We step up the punishment for the real gun because we want people planning a robbery to choose the toy gun (less chance of someone getting hurt).
2) Gross: Any punishment beyond what the criminal conduct deserves is punishment without guilt
3) Hart & Honoré: Three different deterrence rationales for differing sentences
a) One crime causes more harm to than another (more desire to deter)
b) One crime is more tempting than another (harder to deter)
c) One crime is more a sign of a dangerous character than another
4) Ewing: Disproportionately large punishment for relatively small crimes discredits the law in the eyes of society.
5) Generally, the proportionality of the sentence to the crime is related to:
a) Blameworthiness
b) The injury threatened
c) The state of mind that goes with the crime
B. Constitutional Limits
1) Doctrine
a) A sentence is constitutional if grossly disproportionate to the gravity of the crime.
b) Legislatures get deference to choose punishments based on either retribution or deterrence, but not, it seems, incapacitation.
2) Harmelin v. Michigan (1991) – Upheld mandatory life sentence for first offense for possession of cocaine against challenge of cruel and unusual punishment.
a) Court did not apply Solem v. Helm (1983), which had held life without parole for a series of moderately serious offenses unconstitutional.
i) Solem gave three relevant factors to consider
• Inherent gravity of the offense
• Sentences given for similarly grave offenses in the same jurisdiction
• Sentences given for the same crime in other jurisdictions
ii) Scalia (writing for the court) and Rehnquist would overrule Solem and hold that cruel and unusual punishment analysis work only for methods of punishment not proportionality, because in the real world decisions on gravity of offense are subjective and up to legislatures.
• The one exception is death sentences (“death is different”) where death penalty for rape is unconstitutional because it is disproportionate.
iii) Kennedy’s plurality is the controlling opinion, however, and he keeps Solem but says sentences are unconstitutional only if grossly disproportionate
• Says that in this case the crime is inherently more serious than the one in Solem, the final crime of which was passing a bad check.
• Facts and figures detailing the seriousness of the drug problem in Michigan make it reasonable that the legislature thought this crime was so serious that it needed the retribution and deterrence of life without parole.
1. Here, it’s the danger of the crime, the temptation caused by its profitability, and the fear it causes in the community that add up to making it reasonable for the state to max out its deterrence.
• But Solem where the court focuses on the seriousness in the final crime of the string, seems to tell us the states won’t get the benefit of the doubt when their purpose is incapacitation.
b) Dissent points out that this punishment is the same as for first-degree murder in Michigan, which should make it fail under Solem
i) This fact strongly suggests that its just deterrence at work here, because it seems to go beyond just deserts.
c) Note: Michigan in State v. Bullock later invalidated the Harmelin statute under the state constitution which prohibits “cruel or unusual” punishment.
C. Plea Bargaining
1) The jury trial penalty
a) Statistics show that people who plead guilty get 40% lower sentences than people who are convicted at trial.
b) In a sense, a defendant is asked to bargain away his constitutional rights for a reduced sentence.
2) Bordenkircher v. Hayes – On habeas appeal, upheld conviction under habitual offender law where prosecutor initially charged a lesser crime then threatened to recharge with the more serious crime if ∆ didn’t plead guilty.
a) Holding: It does not violate due process for a prosecutor to threaten a higher charge in order to induce a guilty plea on the lower charge.
b) Distinguished earlier cases (e.g. North Carolina v. Pearce) which held that prosecutors can’t hit a defendant with a higher charge in retaliation for the defendant having exercised his constitutional rights (successfully appealing an earlier conviction on a lesser offense)
i) The court says the initial bargaining process is different, because the defendant is free to reject the offer.
c) Overall, this means the prosecutor retains a great deal of discretion in choosing what to charge in order to induce guilty pleas, with some limits.
i) The higher charge must be something that ∆ could have been charged with initially.
• If this condition is met, the Court sees no difference between a prosecutor threatening to recharge and the prosecutor initially making the higher charge and offering to reduce it.
• In other words, anything that goes on in the bargaining process that is within the four corners of a crime that could be charged does not violate due process.
ii) Any promise a prosecutor makes as to a lower sentence must be kept.
iii) The guilty plea must be voluntary and knowing.
3) Plea bargaining and the federal sentencing guidelines
a) Since the advent of the guidelines, sentencing (especially for drug offenses) has gone up, and so have the number of guilty pleas.
b) REVIEW FED GUIDELINES INFO
Exemplary Crimes
I. Homicide
A. Summary
1) NYPL 125
2) Basic grading
a) Intentional
i) 1st and 2nd Degree Murder
• Traditional distinction is premeditation
• MPC and NYPL have dropped the premeditation requirement for first degree murder.
ii) Voluntary manslaughter
• Generally would be murder but for mitigation
1. Traditional mitigation is provocation.
2. MPC and NYPL: extreme emotional disturbance
b) Unintentional
i) Unintentional manslaughter
• Requires recklessness or criminal negligence
1. In NY and other jurisdictions, negligent homicide a separate, lesser offense
2. In some jurisdictions, misdemeanor-manslaughter doctrine
ii) Depraved indifference murder
• “Recklessness plus” or “just didn’t give a damn murder”
• The act would be a reckless manslaughter, but the defendant exhibited extreme indifference to human life.
iii) Felony murder
• Allows a murder conviction where there is intent for the underlying felony, but not for the killing.
• Limits
1. One of the participants must cause the death (Hernandez)
2. Death of a participant generally not covered
3. Felony must be inherently dangerous to human life
a. Some statutes incl. NYPL specify which felonies qualify
4. Merger doctrine
5. Foreseeability requirement
B. Intentional Homicides
1) Generally
2) At common law, any intentional killing was a murder. There was no grading.
3) Malice aforethought
a) A tautology
b) California makes this a predicate to all murder, but it does not mean either premeditation or deliberation.
c) Premeditation is something separate that is required to bump a simple murder up to 1st Degree.
d)
4) Distinguishing between degrees of murder
a) At common law, there was no grading of murder. First and second degree distinctions introduced in order to reserve the death penalty for the most serious murders.
b) Premeditation/deliberation
i) In states that require premeditation or deliberation for 1st Degree murder, differing definitions. The two cases below show the difference between approaches.
• Commonwealth v. Carroll (Pa. 1963) pg. 396 – Conviction for 1st degree murder under a law requiring premeditation upheld despite no evidence that he decided to murder her before the moment he pulled the trigger.
1. The couple had a history of bad arguments, and they were having another one and there happened to be a gun nearby, which ∆ “remembered” and grabbed and shot in an instant.
2. The holding is essentially that “no time is too short” for premeditation to occur.
3. This case essentially destroys any workable notion of premeditation by collapsing it into a generic notion of intent, and basically eliminates any distinction between the two degrees of murder.
4. Pennsylvania has since done away with the premeditation requirement.
• State v. Guthrie (W. Va. 1995) 400 – 1st degree murder conviction overturned for dishwasher who snapped and stabbed a coworker who had snapped a towel in his nose because the jury instruction equated premeditation and deliberate with intent.
1. This case establishes a real premeditation requirement.
2. Holding: The state must present some evidence that ∆ considered and weighed his decision to kill in order to establish premeditation.
a. Absent this evidence, its second-degree murder.
3. Court says there’s no specific period of time required for p and d, but there must be some period between the formation of the intent to kill and the actual killing.
a. This shows that the killing was calculated.
b. There has to have been some chance for the killer to reflect on the intent to kill after it is formed.
c. The reason premeditated killings are thought to deserve more severe punishment is that the accused purposely killed after contemplating the intent to kill.
4. Carroll probably would not have been convicted of 1st degree murder under the WV rule, but Guthrie certainly would have been under the PA rule.
c) Other problems with premeditation
i) Proof
• Guthrie (via Anderson) gives three categories of useful circumstantial evidence for proving premeditation (in the absence of statements by ∆)
1. Planning activity
2. Facts about prior relationship between ∆ and victim
a. This might reveal a motive to kill
3. Evidence about the nature and manner of the killing that suggest a preconceived design
a. This could involve the weapon used or the place of the killing
ii) Is it an accurate proxy for the worst murders?
• A murderous person who kills completely on impulse may be the worst kind offender imaginable, and the one we should punish most heavily.
1. Note the Anderson case from California where man stabbed 10-year-old 60 times. No evidence of preconceived design, and the explosion of violence suggested an impulse killing, so the defendant convicted only 2nd degree.
• On the other hand, a premeditated killing might sometimes seem less blameworthy.
1. The mercy-killing example from State v. Forrest where a man brought a gun to the hospital and while crying, shot his terminally ill father in the head.
d) Several states have followed the MPC and dropped the premeditation/deliberation distinction between degrees of murder, largely because of the blameworthiness problem shown by Anderson and Forrest.
i) NYPL 125.26-7 – Basic murder is second-degree. raised to first-degree in special circumstances such as killing a cop (that you knew or reasonably should have known was a cop), a prison guard, a killing by an escaped prisoner, killing of a witness to an earlier crime to prevent her from testifying, intentional killing in furtherance of certain felonies, contract killing, killing in a cruel or wanton manner intended to torture the victim before death.
5) Distinguishing between murder and voluntary manslaughter.
a) Voluntary manslaughter is an intentional, impulse killing that would have been a murder but for a mitigation by either provocation or extreme emotional disturbance.
b) Provocation
i) Theoretical debate
• Rationales
1. Strongest rationale seems to be that deterrence is at its weakest when a person is provoked to rage.
2. Chevigny sees the provocation as justifiable as a partial excuse (a concession to the frailty of human nature) but some argue for it’s a partial justification (we think it is somehow right for a person to kill when provoked).
• Criticisms
1. Morse: Reasonable people don’t kill even when provoked, so allowing mitigation cheapens our conception of responsibility for one’s actions.
2. Perhaps the person who can’t resist the temptation to kill is the most dangerous kind of person, most in need of incapacitation or deterrence.
3. From the Maher dissent: With murder now graded, so that not all murders get the death penalty, no longer as strong a need to mitigate due to provocation.
ii) Common law provocation
• Traditionally limited to extreme assault or battery on ∆, mutual combat, illegal arrest of ∆, injury or serious abuse of ∆’s close relative or sudden discovery of spouse’s adultery.
• Words alone not adequate provocation to mitigate.
1. Girouard v. State (Md. 1991) pg. 405 – Man who brutally killed wife after she taunted him (calling him a “lousy fuck” and saying she never wanted to marry him and asking “what are you going to do?”) denied a provocation instruction.
a. For provocation to be adequate for mitigation is must be calculated to inflame the passion of a reasonable man and tend to cause him to act for the moment from passion rather than reason.
b. The standard is objective. The particular frailties of ∆ do not matter.
• Too long of a lapse of time between the provocation and the act of killing makes the provocation inadequate as a matter of law.
1.
iii) A more flexible provocation defense
• Does the provocation have to be right in your face when you do the killing or can some time elapse?
1. Maher v. People (Mich. 1862) pg. 407 – Assault with intent to murder conviction reversed for man who shot a man he had seen going into the woods with his wife an hour earlier, and whom a friend told him was having an affair with his wife.
a. Court says the evidence of provocation should have gone to the jury.
b. Question is a fact-specific inquiry into whether the provocation was sufficient to overcome the control of a man of ordinary disposition.
c. Here, despite the lack of immediacy, a jury might have found provocation because the excitement with which he entered the saloon and the “hasty manner” in which he shot the victim.
d. Dissent: The provocation should at least have to be in the defendant’s presence.
iv) Defendants who elicit provocation
• In most provocation jurisdictions, no provocation instruction is available where ∆ elicited the provocation.
c) Extreme Emotional Disturbance
i) MPC approach developed as reform of provocation defense that makes the inquiry more flexible and subjective.
• NYPL 125.25(1)(a) adopts the MPC approach, with the only difference being that in New York EED is an affirmative defense (burden on ∆) whereas the MPC approach puts the burden on the state to prove there was not an EED.
1.
• Unlike provocation, extreme emotional disturbance defense does not require an immediate and spontaneous response, but can occur when a significant mental trauma has simmered before coming out.
ii) Two components of extreme emotional disturbance inquiry:
• Subjective: Did ∆ act under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance?
• Mixed: Was there a reasonable explanation for the extreme emotional disturbance, when viewed from the viewpoint of a person in ∆’s situation under the circumstances as ∆ believed them to be?
1. The fact finder has to ask whether the EED was objectively reasonable from the subjective perspective of ∆’s situation.
iii) People v. Casassa (N.Y. 1980) pg. 415 – Jealous wannabe boyfriend who broke into woman’s house several times and on the last visit brutally murdered her properly denied mitigation because while he subjectively had an EED, it was not reasonable under the subjective/objective test.
• Trial court acting as fact-finder (∆ had waived a jury trial) found that ∆ had an EED at the time of the killing (meeting the first, wholly subjective part of the test) but that there was not a reasonable explanation because the EED was so peculiar to his weird personality.
• Court of Appeals said that the trial judge did not err, because while the second element contains the subjective elements of the defendant’s situation and the defendant’s perception of the circumstances (“however inaccurate that perception may have been”) the component is in the end an objective one.
iv) What counts as ∆’s situation?
• The MPC gives some outer limits
1. Blindness, shock from a traumatic injury and extreme grief are part of the inquiry.
2. Ideosyncratic moral values are not.
a. Example given here is that an assassin who kills a political leader is not to be judged by the standard of a “reasonable extremist.”
3. Leaves open a murky middle
a. Gives example of a person born illegitimate who has special sensitivity to the word “bastard” as an example of a “situation” that may or may not be considered, depending on the case.
b. Says question to ask is always whether the actor’s loss of self-control can be understood in terms that arouse sympathy in the ordinary citizen.
• Factors to consider
1. A characteristic you’re stuck with is more likely to be usable
a. Immutable characteristics such as age or gender, for example.
b. This may even include battered woman’s syndrome, if that wasn’t already enough for a complete defense of justification.
2. A court is unlikely to consider “situations” that are themselves things we want to deter.
a. People v. Walker (pg. 419) – a drug dealer shot his supplier who was hassling him in a restaurant for some money owed, the court found the trial judge did not err in denying an EED instruction based on the idea that an EED might have been reasonable when viewed from the perspective of a drug dealer.
3. An interesting question is whether to consider cultural situations, or things like a recently released prisoner who might argue he has been acculturated to respond to insults with violence.
C. Unintentional Homicides
1) Generally
a) Key questions
i) What are the required states of mind?
ii) What grade of crime do we attach to each?
b) General rules
i) In all jurisdictions, recklessness is sufficient for involuntary manslaughter.
• Jurisdictions are split on whether criminal negligence is enough for manslaughter or whether it constitutes a lesser offense.
• Even in jurisdictions that require recklessness, the definition is often relaxed to something approximating negligence.
ii) In cases where ∆ has been reckless and shown a depraved indifference to human life, he can be convicted of murder without a showing of intent.
• This is sort of a “recklessness plus” state of mind that still falls short of actual purpose.
iii) In many jurisdictions, a person who unintentionally kills in the furtherance of a separate felony can be convicted of murder.
• Jurisdiction impose a number of confusing limits on this because of the danger inherent in allowing murder convictions with no showing of intent.
2) Involuntary manslaughter
a) Generally
i) MPC defines manslaughter as homicide committed recklessly, which makes awareness of the risk a requirement for conviction.
• Also includes a lesser offense of negligent homicide for killings that result from criminal negligence.
1. MPC definition of negligence also contains a subjective element, in that it requires ∆ to exercise the care that would be exercised by a reasonable person in ∆’s situation.
a. Considerations here are the same as those in the EED analysis.
• In its pure form, recklessness is a subjective standard, but the Welansky case shows the blurring between recklessness and negligence, where recklessness was required but the court applied an objective, negligence-like standard.
• Also, even under a strict recklessness rule, in practical terms it is difficult for a ∆ to persuade a jury that that he didn’t perceive a risk that an ordinary person would have.
ii) In other jurisdictions, criminal negligence alone (almost never just civil negligence) is sufficient for involuntary manslaughter.
• This is an objective, reasonable person analysis.
b) Defining recklessness.
i) Commonwealth v. Welansky (Mass. 1944) pg. 425 – Owner of nightclub that burned convicted of reckless manslaughter when despite being in the hospital at the time of the fire, he was aware of conditions that made the bar unsafe such as tables blocking exits and lack of panic bars on doors (for fear that clients would use them to leave without paying).
• Court uses a definition or recklessness that is very close to that of criminal negligence: Knowing facts that would cause a reasonable man to know the danger is equivalent to knowing the danger.
1. In Mass., no such thing as criminal negligence. Court says that what divides recklessness from negligence is the degree of risk and the voluntary taking of it.
a. Here the actus reus was an omission because he had a statutory duty to make the place fire safe.
2. If ∆ was actually aware of the substantial and unjustifiable risk, then he’s reckless no matter what, but if he’s too stupid or heedless to recognize the risk, then the question is whether the “ordinary normal man” would have recognized it.
• The difficult thing here is that its not clear that Welansky actually was aware of the risk, which is usually required for recklessness.
1. The court notes that he spent most evenings at the club as evidence that he had to have been aware, but it also could be evidence that he wasn’t aware, because if he were aware why would he put himself in danger every night?
ii) Contributory negligence
• Not a defense to involuntary manslaughter, but it may bear on proximate cause.
c) Justifiable risks
i) If a risk was justifiable, taking it is not reckless, and there is no criminal liability.
ii) The Salmond Test →To determine whether a risk was justifiable, balance the magnitude of the risk against the importance of the object to be attained by the risky conduct.
• Example given is that railroads risk more deaths by running trains after 50 mph rather than 10 mph, but that risk is justified by the societal benefits from faster trains.
d) The objective standard of negligence
i) State v. Williams (Wash. 1971) pg. 431 – Conviction upheld against Indian couple whose baby died from a tooth problem when they neglected to take him to the hospital out of fear that the state would take the baby away.
• Court applied an objective, person of reasonable prudence standard.
1. The standard here was at what point an ordinarily prudent person, solicitous for the welfare of his child, would deem it necessary to call in a doctor.
• The medical evidence showed that the baby had the infection for two weeks before death, and that an odor would have been present for ten days before death. The last week would have been too late to save the baby, so the question was whether a reasonable person would have thought it necessary to call the doctor during the first week of the infection
1. There was testimony that the couple thought a doctor wasn’t necessary, but their other statements that they were afraid of having the baby taken away suggest they did apprehend the risk.
2. Whether they did or not, the court found there was enough evidence that a reasonable person would have found it necessary to bring the baby to a doctor, and that was enough for negligence.
• The Williamses were convicted on simple negligence. The Washington statute has since been changed to create two separate degrees of manslaughter: recklessly causing death, and causing death by criminal negligence.
• This is a case of an omission where the law imposed a duty
3) Reckless Murder (Depraved Indifference)
a) Statutory definitions
i) MPC: An unintentional killing is murder when it is committed recklessly and under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life.
• The commentary says the ordinary intent requirement exists precisely as evidence of this extreme indifference, and where it is displayed without intent, a murder conviction is proper.
• Also, extreme indifference murder under the MPC always requires actual awareness of the risk.
ii) NYPL 125.25(2) – Unintentional homicide is murder in the second degree when the circumstances demonstrate a depraved indifference to human life and ∆ has recklessly engaged in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to another person.
• Note also 125.25(4) where recklessness can be as to a grave risk of physical injury (not just death) when the victim is under 11 years old.
b) Defining depraved indifference
i) Commonwealth v. Malone (Penn. 1946) pg. 439 – Second-degree murder conviction upheld for boy who shot and killed friend in a game of Russian roulette despite not actually intending to kill him.
• Court holds that when someone commits an act of gross recklessness from which he must reasonably anticipate death will occur, he has displayed the enough malice to convict for murder even without specific intent.
1. The boy had placed a single bullet in the chamber to the right of the pin (leaving four chambers empty) and pulled the trigger three times, thinking that the bullet wouldn’t fire until the fifth pull.
2. Court measures the risk of death at 60 percent from the three pulls, which helps to make this gross recklessness, but should it have measured it a 33 percent (the likelihood of firing from only third pull)?
• Chevigny thinks that the fact that he pulled the trigger three times is key because it showed that he wanted to see whether the gun would go off, which suggests that depraved indifference, or “callous disregard” required for this to go from manslaughter to murder.
c) Depraved indifference can be found from a higher degree of recklessness conduct, rather than a difference in kind of conduct.
i) U.S. v. Fleming (4th Cir. 1984) pg. 443 -- ∆ convicted of second-degree murder when he drove drunk at high speeds on a national park road and killed a woman in an oncoming car.
• Under federal law, “malice aforethought” is what distinguishes murder from manslaughter, but the court said malice could be shown if the government proved that he ”intended to operate his car in the manner in which he did with a heart that was without regard for the life and safety of others.”
1. Court said the difference between depraved heart murder and negligent manslaughter is one of “degree rather than kind” and that it was established because his reckless driving was so much more reckless than the typical vehicular homicide.
a. He was not only going 30 to 50 miles over the speed limit, he also was crossing into oncoming lanes, even when there was a raised concrete median in place.
• Voluntary drunkenness does not negate recklessness (he can’t argue that he was too drunk to appreciate the risk, because he created the situation by drinking and getting behind the wheel, or by drinking and knowing he had to drive home.
1. On the contrary, the court said his drunkenness actually contributed to the finding of malice, because his crazy driving was more dangerous because of his being drunk.
4) Felony Murder
a) Basic doctrine
i) If you kill someone in the course of committing another felony, you can be convicted of murder whether or not you foresaw the risk or intended to kill.
• Felony murder is a form of strict liability (in that it does not require mens rea as relates to the killing) and vicarious liability (because you can be convicted for a killing by an accomplice).
• Regina v. Serné (1887) pg.448 – Pair convicted of murder when they set fire to a Serné’s house or insurance purposes and killed Serné’s son who was sleeping inside.
1. They could have been convicted of intentional murder or malignant heart murder, but felony murder is easier to prove because the state doesn’t have to prove a state mind.
ii) The death does not have to be a foreseeable consequence of the felony, it merely has to be a direct causal result of it.
• A corollary of this is that you take your victim as you find him.
• People v. Stamp (Cal. App. 1969) pg 450 -- ∆ convicted of murder of man with severe heart disease who had a heart attack when ∆ burglarized his business.
1. “So long as life is shortened by the felonious act it does not matter that the victim might have died soon anyway.”
• But for cause is not enough, the death must also have been proximately caused by the felony.
1. King v. Commonwealth – Felony-murder conviction reversed for pilot of drug smuggling plane whose copilot was killed when the plane crashed in foggy whether. Court said the felony wasn’t a proximate cause of the crash because it was not made more likely by the fact that the cargo was contraband.
iii) Rationale seems to be deterrence, both in making people think twice before committing dangerous felonies and in taking greater care while committing them
• Criticism is that this goes against the basic tenet that we punish people only for what their actual state of mind makes them blameworthy for.
1. MPC recommended eliminating felony-murder for these reasons, and turning it into a rebuttable presumption of depraved indifference for killings in the commission of certain felonies.
a. This recommendation has largely been ignored by legislatures, but the Michigan Supreme Court abolished felony-murder judicially.
iv) Some jurisdictions including Calif. also have a misdemeanor-manslaughter rule, where deaths in the commission of a misdemeanor can be the basis for a manslaughter conviction without proof of the required recklessness or negligence.
• In jurisdictions applying this rule, the proximate cause requirement still applies
• Some states have limited this statutorily to misdemeanors designed to protect human safety.
b) Limitations on the felony-murder rule
i) Felony-murder is only available where the killing occurs in the commission of a felony inherently dangerous to human life.
• Rationale is that if the underlying felony is not inherently dangerous, then the necessary mens rea is not present.
• NY among jurisdictions that have limited by statute the list of what felonies qualify for felony-murder – NYPL 125.25(3)
• Some jurisdictions follow the California rule of judging whether a felony is inherently dangerous by its generic description, rather than by the specific facts of ∆’s case.
1. People v. Phillips (Cal. 1966) pg. 459 –Felony-murder conviction reversed for chiropractor who talked parents out of cancer treatment for child (removal of eye) because the underlying felony of grand theft was generally not inherently dangerous.
a. On the facts of the case, ∆’s crime may have been inherently dangerous, but the generic grand theft was not.
b. Court suggested that on the facts ∆ could have been convicted of depraved indifference murder, and on retrial he was.
2. People v. Satchell (Cal. 1972) pg 462 – F-M conviction reversed because possession of weapon by an ex-felon was not an inherently dangerous felony.
a. California court wanted to narrow felony murder as much as possible given its blameworthiness problems.
3. Note also → People v. Henderson (Cal. 1977), where the court found that a defendant who held a victim hostage by holding a gun to his head (the victim was shot accidentally while trying to escape) could not be convicted of felony-murder, because the underlying felony of false imprisonment was not inherently dangerous in the abstract.
a. Some false imprisonments (like this one) are done with life endangering conduct, but not all.
• Other jurisdictions, like Rhode Island, reject the abstract rule and evaluate which felonies are inherently dangerous on a case-by-case basis.
1. People v. Stewart (R.I. 1995) pg. 464 – Woman whose infant son died when she didn’t feed him for three days while on a crack binge could be convicted of felony murder based on the underlying felony of “wrongfully permitting a child to be a habitual sufferer.”
a. Explicitly rejects the California approach and says that the trier of fact in each case should look to whether the underlying felony was inherently dangerous in the manner and circumstances in which it was committed.
ii) Under the merger doctrine felony murder is not allowed where the purpose of the underlying felony was the conduct that resulted in the death.
• People v. Smith (Cal. 1984) pg. 466 – No F-M allowable based on felony child abuse because the felony was an integral part of and included in fact within the homicide, which meant that it merged with the homicide
1. Exception to this rule is if the felony that is an integral part of the homicide was committed for an independent felonious purpose.
a. This distinguishes cases like Ireland, where assault with a deadly weapon merged with the resulting homicide, and Wilson, where burglary merged when the entry was felonious only because it included intent to commit assault, from Burton where armed robbery (which includes an assault with a deadly weapon, which is included in the homicide) did not merge because of the independent felonious purpose of obtaining money.
2. Rationale is that if felony murder rule was based on felonies that were an integral part of the homicide, prosecutors could bootstrap by using the included felony as a way to avoid proving intent.
a. If you allow felony-murder here, then just about any assault becomes murder if it results in death.
b. Problem is that this exposes a major flaw in felony murder generally, which is that the sentences can be wildly disproportionate.
• California backed away from the merger doctrine in People v. Hansen (1994) where a merger doctrine attack was denied where a man fired a gun into a house of a man who owed him money and killed a kid living there. The court rejected the “integral part” and “independent purpose” tests and opted for an ad hoc approach based on whether it would subvert the actual malice requirement.
1. Other states still use the independent purpose test.
iii) Only killings in furtherance of the underlying felony are eligible for the felony-murder rule. This doctrine tests the limits of the vicarious liability aspects of felony murder.
• Who does the killing?
1. Under the agency theory, felony-murder liability attaches only if the killing is directly attributable to an act by ∆ or one of his accomplices in the underlying felony.
a. State v. Canola (N.J. 1977) pg. 471 -- ∆ not liable under felony-murder when for the death of his accomplice in a robbery because the accomplice was shot by the store owner.
i. Court says that an exception to the agency theory it adopts are shield cases, where ∆ thrusts a victim into the line of fire where he is shot by the police. In these cases, ∆ is still held to have constructively caused the death by putting the victim in the dangerous situation.
ii. Concurrence would have adopted proximate cause theory, but with an exception that there is no felony murder liability for the death of a co-felon at the hands of someone else.
iii. Rationale seems to be a desire to limit the extend of the felony murder doctrine.
2. Under the proximate cause theory, ∆ is liable under felony-murder for any death proximately caused by the unlawful activity, even if it resulted directly from the act someone resisting the crime, or a police officer.
a. This theory was out of favor, but it has been coming back.
b. NY seemed to adopt the proximate cause theory in People v. Hernandez (1993) when the court found felony murder liability for armed robbers when a policeman responding was shot by a fellow cop during a shootout.
c. NYPL 125.25(3) follows the general rule of exempting the death of a co-felon from felony-murder liability.
II. Problems Related to Homicide
A. Causation
1) A person causes a homicide when he is both a but-for cause and the result was foreseeable.
a) People v. Acosta (Cal.App. 1991) pg. 518 – Man fleeing from police was the proximate cause of two police helicopters that were tracking him crashing because they wouldn’t have been there without his decision to flee, and because the court saw the crash as a foreseeable consequence of his actions.
i) Court applies a highly extraordinary result test for the limits of foreseeability, and finds that while such a crash was unusual, it “a possible consequence which might reasonably have been contemplated.”
• This was the case even though the court could find no similar crashes during pursuits in the past.
ii) The court reverses the conviction for second-degree murder, however, because this was a depraved indifference case, which requires that he actually was aware of the risk. Reasonable foreseeability is enough for causation, but for reckless murder he had to have actually foreseen it.
iii) The fact the helicopter pilot may have acted negligently is defense, because he created the situation that made the negligence possible.
• Simple negligence by another party that was foreseeable doesn’t break the chain of causation.
iv) Dissent: A crash on the ground was foreseeable, but to extend that to helicopters is a stretch. This simply was a highly extraordinary result.
2) Where the above elements of causation are met, the fact ∆ is not the exclusive cause does not relieve him of liability unless the other cause breaks the chain of causation.
a) People v. Arzon (S.Ct. N.Y. 1978) pg. 521 – Man who started one fire could be convicted of murder even though the victim died from the combination of his fire and another arson fire in building that there was no evidence he had set.
i) Relies on People v. Kibbe (N.Y. 1974) in which defendants abandoned a piss drunk robbery victim by the side of a dark road, in sub-freezing temperatures, without his shoes or glasses, and with his pants pulled down and no jacket. He was killed when he was hit by a passing truck. Defendants were liable for murder because they put in the position where he was vulnerable to the independent cause.
ii) In the fire case, he put the victim in a position where he was vulnerable to the second fire, because Arzon’s fire blocked his escape from the second fire.
3) However, ∆ must be a sufficiently direct cause of death in order for criminal liability to attach.
a) People v. Warner-Lambert (N.Y 1980) pg. 523 – Chewing gum factory owners could not be charged with manslaughter when their factory exploded killing their employees because while they had left a known explosion hazard in the form of uncontained chemicals, there was no evidence of where the actual spark for the explosion came from.
i) Court distinguished this case on similar facts in People v. Deitsch (1983) because there the theory was that they had left exits blocked, and it was foreseeable that the conditions they had created would result in death in the event of a fire.
4) Transferred intent: If ∆ takes an action intended to kill one person, and it results instead in the death of another, he can be convicted of intent of the person actually killed (this “intent follows the bullet” rule is the law everywhere).
i) Rationale is that the mens rea (intent to kill) matches up with the result (a killing) even if the victim is unexpected.
B. The Death Penalty
1) Philosophical issues
a) Rationales for its continued use
i) Deterrence: The problem is that there is no good evidence showing that the existence of the death penalty actually deters murder more than life imprisonment does.
ii) Just deserts: Question here is whether imposition of the death penalty our respect for life, or our contempt for it.
b) The inherent uncertainty, and possibility of executing innocents
i) Van den Haag → We undertake activities all the time (transporting hazardous materials, surgery) that risk innocent deaths because we calculate that the net societal benefits outweigh the risks. Why should the death penalty be different?
2) The Supreme Court has held that the Eighth Amendment requires that death sentences be imposed in a separate proceeding after the finding of guilt, and that sentences be handed down based on aggravating and mitigating factors.
a) Gregg v. Georgia (1976) pg. 494 – Upheld Georgia’s revised death penalty statute after striking down an another version four years earlier as cruel and unusual.
i) In the previous case (Furman v. Georgia) two justices would held the death penalty per se unconstitutional, but the controlling opinion held that it was unconstitutional only in the way it was then applied because it was too random.
ii) This case upheld a scheme with a bifurcated process and where the jury was required to find one of 10 statutory aggravating factors present before a death sentence was imposed, and then could require other aggravating or mitigating factors.
• This was enough to prevent the arbitrary and capricious results of the system invalidated in Furman, where there was no way to distinguish between cases where death was imposed, and cases where it wasn’t.
3) While Furman and Gregg were concerned with excessive discretion in sentencing, later cases make clear that too little discretion for the jury to consider mitigating factors is also unconstional.
a) Statutory schemes mandating the death penalty for certain crimes are unconstitutional.
• Woodson v. North Carolina (1976) – Struck down statute with a straight requirement of death for all first-degree murders
• Jurek v. Texas (1976) – Upheld scheme where death had to be imposed if the jury did not answer no to one of three questions in certain murder categories.
1. This is quasi-mandatory, but the court said it was closer to Gregg than to Woodson because the five categories of murder that qualified were similar to aggravating circumstances.
b) Juries must be allowed to consider individualized mitigating factors.
i) Lockett v. Ohio (1978) – Invalidated scheme where if one of seven aggravating factors was found, death was mandatory unless there was some sort of an excuse like mental defect.
• Plurality said the sentencing body had to be allowed to consider any aspect of ∆’s character and any circumstances of the crime that ∆ offers a mitigating factor.
ii) Eddings v. Oklahoma (1978) extended this to say that the sentencer has to give some weight to the troubled family background and emotional problems of ∆.
iii) Skipper v. S.C. (1986) held that evidence of ∆’s good behavior in jail while awaiting trial could not be excluded.
4) The death penalty is generally unconstitutionally disproportionate as a punishment for crimes other than intentional murder, but some exceptions
a) Coker v. Georgia (1977) – Held that the death penalty for rape violated the Eighth Amendment.
b) Vicarious liability
i) Enmund v. Florida (1982) – Death Penalty unconstitutional for man convicted of felony murder when he waited in the car while two accomplices to a robbery mudered a couple.
• Said that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for a ∆ “who does not himself kill, attempt to kill, or intend that a killing take place or that lethal force be employed.”
ii) However, Tison v Arizona (1987) Death penalty allowed for sons who freed murderer father from prison then helped him flag down a car in the desert holding a family of four to steal their car. They went off to get water and left him there, and he murdered all four.
• They could be sentenced to death for their reckless indifference murder, because they had the requisite state of culpability under Enmund.
5) Statistics showing discriminatory results in who gets sentenced to death do not invalidate the system.
a) McCleskey v. Kemp (1987) pg. 506 – Death sentence upheld because while Baldus study showed evidence of discriminatory results from Georgia’s death penalty system, it didn’t prove discrimination is his particular case.
i) The discrimination here resulted from the discretion given to juries, which the court found value in.
III. Sex Crimes
A. Generally
1) Common law rape (ungraded): Sex with a woman by force and without consent.
2) Modern statutes have graded the offense, and relaxed the force requirement.
a) NYPL 130: First-degree rape still requires either forcible compulsion or a physically helpless victim, but third-degree rape is simply “sex without consent,” where the victim clearly expressed a lack of consent, and a reasonable person in the actor’s situation would have understood a lack of consent.
B. Actus Reus
1) Non consent
a) Traditionally, resistance was required to prove the victim’s lack of consent.
b)
2) The traditional requirements for rape
a) The three traditional requirements to prove the act of rape
i) Force
3) The central element is sex that took place without the consent of the victim.
a) Resistance
i) Some states include a resistance requirement in the statutory elements of the crime, but more often has been read as implicit in the force and non-consent requirements.
• Contemporary law (statutory and judge made) has dropped the requirement that a victim resist “to the utmost” in favor of a requirement of “reasonable resistance.”
• Other states have dropped a formal resistance requirement altogether, but resistance is still considered probative on the issue of whether the victim consented.
ii) California repealed a statutory resistance requirement in 1980 based on evidence that requiring resistance led to more severe injuries to women, and that a lack of resistance often reflected “frozen fright.”
• A contrary view is that resistance deters more rapes, and that women recover from rape psychologically quicker when they have resisted.
b) State v. Rusk (Md. 1981) pg. 323 – Man convicted of rape in case where he met a girl at a bar, got a ride home, and then got her to come up to his apartment. She said she agreed to have sex with him because of fear. She said that he lightly choked her and that she asked him “If I do what you want, will you let me go without killing me?”
i) Under Maryland’s common law system, to establish lack of consent, a victim either had to resist, or have had a genuine and reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily harm.
ii) Court said that given his taking of her keys and the choking, a jury could rationally have found that she had a genuine and reasonable fear of serious bodily harm.
• The question of the reasonableness of the victim’s fear is for the jury to answer, and here they believed the accused and disbelieved ∆.
iii) Dissent: Unless ∆ has objectively manifested an intent to use physical force to get sex, victim should be required to make clear by more than just words that she regards the acts “abhorrent and repugnant to her natural sense of pride.”
• On this view, ∆’s alleged acts simply weren’t enough to paralyze her with fear and keep her from running.
c) Where the circumstances do not show a reasonably grounded fear, a lack of any resistance or communication of non-consent can imply consent.
i) People v. Warren (Ill. 1983) pg. 331 – Conviction overturned where much larger man carried biker into the woods and performed sex acts and she did not resist or communicate a lack of consent. She said she failed to do anything because of fear, but the circumstances did not demonstrate that the fear was reasonably grounded.
4) To establish lack of consent, rape traditionally also requires that ∆ have used force.
a) NYPL 130.35: First-degree rape requires forcible compulsion (in the absence of special circumstances)
b) Rationale
i) The main purpose of the force requirement is that it clears up an ambiguous situation.
c) Implicit threats are often not enough to satisfy the force requirement.
i) State v. Alston (N.C. 1984) – Conviction reversed where man who had abused ex-girlfriend and told her he was going to “fix” her face and that he had a right to have sex with her one more time, took her to a friends house, took off her clothes, pushed her legs apart and penetrated her.
• The court said non-consent was unequivocal, but that the evidence was not enough to establish the force element.
d) Similarly, non-physical threats traditionally do not meet the force requirement
i) State v. Thompson (Mont. 1990) pg. 333 – Force requirement not met where high school principal induced sex from student by threatening to prevent her from graduating from high school.
• Court interpreted statutory requirement of force to include only “physical compulsion, the use or immediate threat of bodily harm, injury.”
ii) Commonwealth v. Mlinarich (Pa. 1985) – Force requirement not met where ∆ had taken custody of girl in state detention home and then threatened to send her back if she didn’t have sex with him.
• Court says that force requires “actual physical violence” or the threat thereof.
• To interpret force more broadly, the court thinks, would allow rape convictions in all kinds of ambiguous situation like where the man takes in the destitute widow and then threatens to withdraw support unless she consents to sex with him.
e) However, some jurisdictions have stretched the definition by allowing a conviction where the victim’s submission is obtained by non-physical coercion.
i) MPC §213.1(2) allows conviction for “gross sexual imposition” where submission is compelled by either force or “any threat that would prevent resistance by a woman of ordinary resolution.”
ii) Commonwealth v. Rhodes (Pa. 1986) – Read forcible compulsion to include acts of using superior physical, moral, psychological or intellectual force to compel a victim to have sex.
• PA legislature codified a similar definition in the statute in 1995.
iii) State v. Lovely (N.H. 1984) – Conviction upheld against liquor store owner who hired a drifter and took him into his home and began a sexual relationship with him. When the drifter wanted to break it off, Lovely threatened to fire him, kick him out, and cut off rent payments.
• Lovely was convicted under a NH law making it a felony to coerce submission to sexual penetration by “threatening to retaliate against the victim.”
5) In some jurisdictions, legislatures have enacted “reformed” sex crime laws that make non-consensual sex a felony even in the absence of “extrinsic” forcible compulsion.
a) These are lesser graded felonies than traditional rape, but still serious crimes.
b) State in the Interest of MTS (N.J. 1992) pg. 338 – In second-degree sexual assault conviction of teen, court read reform statute to require only the force necessary to achieve the penetration in the absence of affirmative consent.
i) Under the new statute the victim no longer needed to resist or do anything, really, for sex to be unlawful, so a reading that required “extrinsic” force would be inconsistent with the legislative intent.
c) Other examples
i) WI statute includes third-degree sexual assault, defined simply as “sexual intercourse with a person without consent of that person.”
• Consent is defined as “words or actions by a person who is competent to give informed consent indicating a freely given agreement to have sexual intercourse.”
ii) FL statute makes non-consensual penetration committed without force or threat of force a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
• This is less than the 30 years for the first-degree felony (which must include a threat of force likely to cause serious injury) but still a very serious crime.
6)
C. Mens Rea
1) A genuine mistake as whether there was consent in a case where there is not physical force is generally a defense, but it has to be objectively reasonable.
a) Commonwealth v. Sherry (Mass. 1982) pg. 351 – Nurse at a party with three doctors, they brought her somewhat against her will to a faraway house, where she had sex with each of the three in turn. She said she felt physically numb and disgusted and too scared to fight (the jury found a reasonable fear). She said she verbally protested, but the doctors all said they thought she consented.
i) The court says that once the victim says no, the crime becomes strict liability – ∆ proceeds at his own peril.
ii) Here, the defendants asked for an instruction requiring the jury to find actual knowledge of non-consent by the defendants, meaning that they wanted a defense based purely on a subjective belief, with no requirement that it be reasonable.
• Later Mass. cases said no defense even as to a reasonable belief, but that is very much a minority rule.
2) In cases where there is traditional physical force is used, there is no mistake of fact defense.
a) Commonwealth v. Fischer (Penn. 1998) pg. 354 – College students had engaged in “rough sex” earlier in the day. A few hours later, she testified that he locked the door of the dorm room, held her arms above her head, and forced his penis into her mouth and she repeatedly said she didn’t want sex. He testified that he thought because of the earlier encounter that no meant yes, and that he did hold her arms and force himself into her.
i) Court said this is distinguishable from earlier cases that had allowed a mistake of fact defense, because those cases were based on the reformed statutory allowances for non-physical force.
ii) Here, ∆ used actual, traditional physical force. The court says this is more like a stranger rape case with an assault, than the typical murky date rape case.
iii) This means that in most jurisdictions if you prove force, or forcible compulsion, the case is over.
3) Schulhofer model statute proposes first-degree sexual assault be reserved for cases where actual physical force or the threat of it was used, and that a separate crime of sexual abuse allow conviction without force, but with knowledge or recklessness as to lack of consent.
IV. Anticipatory Crimes
A. Attempt
1) Generally
a) Why punish failed attempts?
i) Where a person has a criminal state of mind, we think it is unjust to allow him to go unpunished just because he doesn’t achieve his desired result.
b) NYPL 110: A person is guilty of attempt to commit a crime when, with intent to commit a crime, he engages in conduct which tends to effect the commission of a crime.
i) 110.05: Except in the most serious crimes, attempt is generally graded one step below the grade of the completed crime.
ii) 110.10: Neither legal nor factual impossibility is a defense to attempt.
2) Mens Rea
a) Attempt always requires specific intent to commit the crime even if the completed crime would a require a lesser state of mind, or even no state of mind.
i) When conduct is so dangerous that it can be shown that death was a natural and probable result (such as firing a loaded weapon at someone and missing), intent can be inferred for the purposes of attempted murder. If the conduct does not meet this test, then there must be some other evidence that proves intent.
• Smallwood v. State (Md. 1996) pg. 556 – Conviction for assault with intent to murder reversed for man who had unprotected sex with three women knowing he was HIV positive, because there was no evidence that he actually intended to kill them by his actions.
1. Court says death is not a natural and probable enough outcome from ∆’s conduct to support an inference of intent.
2. Court cites other types of evidence that have successfully proven intent for attempted murder in HIV-exposure cases:
a. Hinkhouse: Evidence that he actively concealed his condition, lied to sex partners about it, refused to wear condoms, and actually told one sex partner that if he were HIV positive, he would try to spread it.
b. Caine: ∆ stabbed a used syringe into victim’s arm while shouting “I’ll give you AIDS.”
c. Weeks: Prisoner who spat at guard thought he could infect him through saliva and had told people “he was going to take someone with him when he went.”
i. Note that this last example is probably an example of impossibility, or at least the probability of success in his attempt was extremely low.
• Note also Thacker v. Commonwealth (Va. 1922) where a drunk mad at a woman who wouldn’t let him in her tent at a campsite fired at a light in her tent. Couldn’t be convicted of attempted murder, because he didn’t intend to shoot her (he intended to shoot the light).
1. This can be solved statutorily by creating a separate, substantive inchoate crime like reckless endangerment.
• Why not punish reckless acts where no harm occurs as attempts?
1. Policy: People do reckless and criminally negligent things all the time, and to punish them all as attempts at serious crimes would dramatically expand the universe of liability.
ii) This rule goes for strict liability crimes as well. For example, to be convicted of misbranding a la Dotterweich, you would have to intend to misbrand, but then somehow fail.
iii) As a result, there is no such thing as attempted involuntary manslaughter, because you can’t intend to commit a crime that is by definition accidental.
• There can, however, be attempted voluntary manslaughter, because that’s just attempted murder that was mitigated by provocation or extreme emotional disturbance.
b) There can, however, be strict liability as to an attendant element of a crime that you intended to commit.
i) Examples: (1) You can be convicted of attempted statutory rape even if unaware that the girl is underage if age is a strict liability element of the completed crime (Commonwealth v. Dunne). (2) You can be convicted of attempted assault on a police officer even if you weren’t aware the person you attempted to assault was a police officer.
3) A more difficult issue is defining when conduct crosses the line from mere preparation (no attempt liability) to attempt.
a) Note King v. Barker’s rejection of the “last act” test and its discussion of a poisoning case, where in a case of attempt to kill someone by administering small amounts of poison over several days, attempt liability attaches on the first administration of poison, not the last.
b) To address this problem, two competing tests have developed: New York’s dangerous proximity rule, and the MPC’s test of culpability plus a substantial step.
i) Under the dangerous proximity rule, considers as an attempt only acts that are so near to the accomplishment of the crime that in all reasonable probability it would have been committed had there not been some timely interfere.ce
• People v. Rizzo (N.Y. 1927) pg. 565 – Four men arrested while out looking to rob a man carrying payroll money could not be convicted of attempt because they had not found the guy they were planning to rob.
1. Court says for attempt the acts must “come or advance very near to the accomplishment of the intended crime.”
2. Court is effusive in its praise of the cops, possibly because it is afraid that in the future they will let perpetrators get closer to accomplishing the crime before intervening, thus raising the possibility of someone getting hurt.
• Note also State v. Duke (Fla. App. 1998) in which a detective posed as a young girl on a chat room and arranged a meeting with a pedophile where the guy was to flash his light to announce his presence and then take the girl home for sex. The cop arrested the guy as soon as he flashed his lights. The court said the dangerous proximity to success test was not met, and reversed the conviction on the grounds that it was mere preparation.
ii) Under the MPC approach (adopted by several federal circuits and about half the states), a person can be punished for attempt if he (1) has the requisite culpability for the attempted crime, and (2) has taken a substantial step toward commission of the crime that is strongly corroborative of the firmess of the defendant’s criminal intent.
• The focus of the test is one what the defendant has already done, rather than on what more he would have to do to complete the crime.
• U.S. v. Jackson (2nd Cir. 1977) pg. 575 – Group of guys were found with guns, shells, masks and handcuffs in their car that they intended to use in a bank robbery. They went to the bank one day, but there were too many people around, so they rescheduled for a week later. That day, the FBI was following them, and they made the agents, and were arrested before entering the bank
a. Court applies the substantial step test and says that the trial judge did not err in finding that their actions on the first aborted effort showed that they would have done it had it not been thwarted, so they had the culpability and they took a substantial step.
i. Also, the fact that they had all of that gear with them would have been sufficient in and of itself.
b. Note also that the defendant’s had conceded their guilt on conspiracy, but contested attempt. This is because conspiracy carried only 5 years, while attempt carried 20!
• Other examples of the substantial step test in action:
1. U.S. v. Harper (9th Cir. 1994) pg. 578 – Conviction for attempted bank robbery reversed for defendants lying in wait near an ATM where one ∆ had set a “bill trap” that he knew would summon technicians that they could rob. Cops found two guns under a bush near their car, and a stun gun, surgical gloves, and ammunition for the guns in their car.
a. Court said the creation of the bill trap was equivocal and not a substantial step, because they never actually made a move toward actual intended victims.
2. U.S. v. Mandujano (5th Cir. 1974) -- ∆ approached by undercover cop who said he wanted to buy heroin. ∆ made several phone calls to try to find heroin for the cop, then took the cop’s $650 to go get some from a supplier, but then came back and returned the money saying he couldn’t find the guy. The cop left, and then called ∆ that evening and couldn’t reach him.
a. Court applied the substantial step test and upheld the conviction.
b. This looks like a clear case where he would have been convicted under the dangerous proximity test.
3. U.S. v. Joyce (8th Cir. 1982) – Man flew to St. Louis to buy cocaine from an undercover cop but then refused to buy it because the cop wouldn’t unwrap the duct taped package to show him (this is because it didn’t really contain drugs).
a. His conviction was reversed under the substantial step test because while he had the requisite culpability to complete the crime, he never attempted to complete the crime.
b. The phone conversation and his flying to meet the cop were just preparation. In order to be convicted of attempt, he’d have to actually try to take possession of the drugs.
c. The difference between this case and Mandujano is that Mandujano took all of the steps to complete the crime, but he was defeated by circumstances. Joyce, on the other hand, abandoned before taking the substantial step.
c) The purpose of the preparation/attempt distinctions is partly because we want to give an opportunity for the perpetrator to repent and abandon his plans.
i) Abandonment: Voluntary abandonment is a complete defense to attempt in New York and other jurisdictions, but it generally must be taken before the crime is thwarted.
ii) Difficult to answer when the defense is available. Note the McNeal and Ross cases, both of them involving men who nabbed women and planned to take them somewhere to rape them. In both cases the woman talked the man out of committing the crime. One court found a renunciation defense, the other did not, saying it wasn’t renunciation because the girl had thwarted it.
4) Another tricky question is when solicitation of someone else to commit a crime for you can be considered an attempt.
a) General rule under the traditional test was that mere solicitation without an act moving directly toward commission of the crime is not an attempt, but this is not always the case.
i) State v. Davis (Mo. 1928) pg. 581 – Woman and boyfriend paid asked a man to help find someone to kill her husband. He went to an undercover cop, who posed as the ex-con and was paid $600 by the couple. They gave him drawings and pictures, he showed up at the house, identified himself as a cop, and arrested the two.
• Court said the solicitation and the planning with the cop was mere preparation.
b) But under the substantial step test, solicitation can amount to an attempt.
i) U.S. v. Church (Military 1989) pg. 582 – Airman convicted of attempted murder of his wife when he solicited an undercover military agent.
• He met the guy in a motel and gave him partial payment for the job, expenses for the flight, maps of the wife’s neighborhood, photos of the wife and son, descriptions where people slept and their work schedules. The agent also showed him the gun he would use, and ∆ approved it and told him where he wanted the wife to be shot. A few days later they came to him with news the wife had been killed and he pretended to grieve. Then he met the agent at a motel and paid him for the job.
• Court said that all of this had to be a substantial step corroborative of his criminal intent. There was nothing else he could have done, other than hire a real hit man!
• Note that the difference between soliciting another to commit murder and attempted murder was the difference between 5 years max and 20 years max.
c) While federal courts generally follow Church in making solicitation eligible as an attempt, many states hold to a hard and fast rule of no attempt liability for mere solicitation.
d) Note NYPL 100 which makes solicitation an inchoate crime in and of itself.
B. Other Anticipatory Crimes
1) The statute books are also filled with substantive inchoate crimes (including solicitation and conspiracy) as well as substantive crimes consisting of preparatory crimes.
a) Two important substantive preparatory crimes carried over from common law:
i) Burglary: Defined as breaking and entering with intent to commit a separate felony inside.
ii) Assault: Traditionally defined as an unlawful attempt to commit a battery.
b) Legislatures have also enacted various modern substantive preparatory crimes:
i) Possession: In some statutes, possession of certain materials is criminal only if coupled with an intent to use them to commit a crime.
ii) Loitering: This and similar crimes are used as policing measures to allow cops to detain people engaging in suspicious activity that falls short of an attempt.
iii) Stalking: These statutes were enacted to penalize threatening behavior seen as threatening more serious violence.
• These laws are generally drawn so as to avoid unconstitutional vagueness, requiring harassment coupled with a credible threat of violence.
C. Impossibility
1) Under the traditional approach legal impossibility (when the act wouldn’t have been criminal even if committed for some reason unknown to ∆) was a defense, but factual impossibility (such as the pickpocket who reaches in to find an empty pocket, or the man who shoots into a room where his wife usually sleeps, but she’s not there that night) was not.
a) People v. Jaffe (N.Y. 1906) pg. 585 – Man could not be convicted of an attempt to purchase stolen goods because (unbeknownst to him) the goods he was trying to purchase were in a legal sense no longer “stolen” by the time he attempted to purchase them.
i) What makes this legal rather than factual impossibility is that had he successfully purchased the property, it wouldn’t have been a crime.
ii) Rationale is that it would be unjust to punish someone for an attempt when he wouldn’t have been punished for completing the attempted act.
iii) Note: this is now bad law in New York.
iv) A few states retain this view, but most including New York have followed the MPC in abandoning the defense altogether.
2) The modern approach (adopted by NYPL 110.10) recognizes neither form of impossibility as a defense.
a) Rationale is that attempt liability should be predicated on ∆’s state of mind, because that it what indicates his danger to society.
i) The fact that he technically can’t pull off the crime under the circumstances does not reduce his danger to society and the need for deterrence or incapacitation.
ii) Also, the person who attempts a technically impossible crime is no less culpable mentally than the person who attempts a possible one, as long as both actually believe the crime to be possible.
b) People v. Dlugash (N.Y. 1977) pg. 587 -- Man who shot a person who had already been shot three times by another man could not be convicted of murder, because the state couldn’t prove the victim was alive at the time of the second shooting, but he could be convicted of attempted murder if the jury believed that he thought the victim was alive at the time he shot him.
i) Under 110.10 neither form of impossibility is a defense if the result intended would have been a crime “had the attendant circumstances been as defendant believed them to be.”
3) Federal courts are split on whether to allow an impossibility defense, with three different approaches in use.
a) The third circuit alone recognizes a defense of legal impossibility
i) U.S. v. Berrigan (3rd Cir. 1973) pg. 592 – Vietnam war protestor’s conviction for attempting to take things into prison “without the knowledge consent of the warden” reversed because the warden actually knew about it and let the courier bring the materials in (unbeknownst to Berrigan).
• Had he successfully transmitted the letters, it wouldn’t have been a crime because the a required element would have been lacking.
• “Attempting to do that which is not a crime is not attempting to commit a crime.”
b) The fifth circuit uses a mixed approach requiring that “the objective acts of the ∆ taken as a whole, strongly corroborate the required culpability for criminal attempt.”
i) U.S. v. Oviedo (5th Cir. 1976) pg. 593 – Man thought he was selling heroin to an undercover cop, but tests back at the lab proved that it wasn’t heroin. He was charged and convicted of attempt to sell heroin (the jury believed he thought it was heroin), but the court reversed because it was not reasonable to infer intent to sell heroin when he wasn’t actually selling heroin.
V. Joint Responsibility Crimes
A. Aiding and Abetting
1) Generally
a) Two requirements which always must be met
i) you intend to aid
ii) you actually aid
b) Punishment
i) One who aids and abets is punished as if he had committed the crime himself.
• NYPL 20.00
ii) This is a change from the common law approach in which there were several categories of aiders and abettors, with differing levels of liability.
• The problem with
2) Mens Rea
a) The basic rule (followed by NY and the MPC): You are liable as an accomplice only if you aid and you intend to aid.
i) Hicks v. U.S (U.S. 1893) pg. 607 – Men on horseback in Cherokee Nation. ∆ was riding with victim when they approached Stand Rowe. Victim approached Stand Rowe, they talked, Stand Rowe shot him. Witnesses heard ∆ laugh, tell victim to “take off his hat and die like a man.”
• Jury instruction were in error because they said that ∆ was liable if his intentionally words had the effect of aiding killer. This was wrong because the relevant intent is the intent to aid.
• The judge also gave an instruction that was correct on the law, but unsupportable on the facts: If ∆ intended to aid, and he actually did aid, then it doesn’t matter that the crime would have been done even without his aid. His aid doesn’t have to have an effect on the crime to make him liable as an accomplice.
ii) The Hand Test: A person can not be found to intend to aid in a criminal enterprise unless he “participates in it as something he wishes to bring about, that he seek by his action to make it succeed.
• State v. Gladstone (Wash. 1980) pg. 611 – Informant came to ∆’s door asking to by pot. ∆ said he didn’t have any, but if the guy wanted to get some he might try this guy Kent. ∆ drew informant a map on how to get there at informant’s request.
1. Court said no accessorial liability because there was no nexus between ∆ and Kent.
a. There was no evidence that ∆ cared whether the sale went off, and without that, there can be no liability.
b. Court hints that ∆ might have been liable had he ever told Kent he would refer clients to him, or if he’d encouraged Kent to sell, or if he stood to gain from Kent’s sales (he had a stake in the venture).
c. NYPL 115: Deals with this by creating a separate crime of criminal facilitation where ∆ provides the means for a crime to be committed, and thinks a crime probably will be committed, but doesn’t have the specific purpose required for aiding and abetting.
2. The MPC committee originally proposed doing away with the purpose requirement in cases like this, but the proposal was rejected, and the MPC retained the requirement.
• Compare U.S. v. Fountain (7th Cir. 1985) pg. 614 – One prisoner, Gometz, slipped another who was being led past Gometz’s cell a knife, which the other prisoner used to murder the guard. Gometz was convicted of aiding and abetting the murder.
1. Posner wrote that proof of specific purpose not required for conviction, adopting rule that that purpose was required for aiding and abetting of lesser crimes, but that mere knowledge was enough for murder.
a. Gometz may not have cared whether the other inmate murdered the guard, but he knew he probably would murder the guard if presented with the knife.
b. Posner justifies this rule (borrowed from Lauria, infra,) on the idea that the need for deterrence is higher when we’re talking about murder.
iii) The Forseeable Consequences Doctrine: Some jurisdictions depart from the basic rule in Gladstone to make a person liable as an accessory if it was reasonably foreseeable that the person he aided would commit the crime.
• Under this doctrine, it is immaterial whether ∆ intended that the actual result occur. It’s enough that he intentionally participates in a situation where the ultimate crime was a foreseeable consequence.
• People v. Luparello (Cal. App. 1987) pg. 615 – ∆ told his henchmen to go to the friend of his ex-girlfriend to find out her whereabouts “at any cost.” They went there (w/o ∆) armed with a gun and a sword and one of them shot and killed the man. ∆ was convicted of murder.
1. In California, aiders and abettors are liable for crimes they have naturally, probably and foreseeably put in motion.
2. This is vicarious liability: ∆ is guilty not only for the crimes he specifically intended to aid, but also for any reasonably foreseeable offenses committed by the person he aids and abets.
3. Concurrence points out the proportionality problem with this doctrine: Like the felony murder rule it allows someone to be convicted of a serious crime without the state having to prove the requisite state of mind.
• Limits of the doctrine
1. Roy v. U.S. (D.C. 1995) pg. 618 – Informant approached ∆ asking to buy illegal handgun. When he came back with the money, ∆ referred him to Ross, who robbed the informant of $600.
a. Trial court instructed the jury that it could convict ∆ for the armed robbery if it was the natural and probable consequence of the attempt to sell the handgun, even if he didn’t intend Ross to rob the informant. At the same time, the court said the appeals court should consider overruling the doctrine because of its effect here (attempt to sell a handgun is a misdemeanor, armed robbery is felony punishable with life imprisonment).
b. Appeals court didn’t overrule the doctrine, but said it was inapplicable here because while the armed robbery was a conceivable result, it wasn’t “natural and probable” “in the ordinary course of things.”
i. No reasonable jury could find that ∆ “crossed the moral divide” between the misdemeanor and the felony just because the robbery was possible.
b) As a general rule, where attendant circumstances are an element of the crime for the principal, courts will require that ∆ have some awareness of the circumstances in order to be convicted as an aider and abettor.
i) U.S. v. Xavier (3rd Cir. 1993) pg. 621 – Conviction reversed for aiding and abetting an ex-felon’s possession of a firearm for man who gave handed his brother a gun because the government never proved he knew his brother was an ex-felon.
• Note the difference here from attempt liability, where a strict liability element in the attendant circumstances carries over as strict liability to the attempt.
ii) The MPC leaves it to courts to decide whether an attendant-circumstance element carries over in strict liability to aiding and abetting.
• The question was easy in Xavier because the statute clearly spelled it out, but it might not be the case in aiding and abetting statutory rape, for example.
1. May come down to policy determination.
c) A person can be convicted of aiding and abetting an unintentional (result-based) crime, if he had the requisite state of mind for the resulting crime.
i) Basic rule
• State v. McVay (R.I. 1926) pg. 623 – Ship owner who directed crewmen to take grossly negligent act of firing up boiler (it exploded and killed passengers) could be convicted of involuntary manslaughter as an aider and abettor because he was aware of the dangerousness of the boiler when he told them to fire it up.
ii) You can be convicted of aiding an abetting an adversary if you are engaged in a common enterprise by encouraging each other to act recklessly.
• People v. Russell (N.Y. 1998) pg. 624 – Young boy killed when hit by stray bullet during shootout among three men in the common area of a housing project. State couldn’t prove which of the three fired the bullet that killed the kid, but all three guilty of depraved indifference murder as aiders and abettors of each other.
1. Even though the three were adversaries, they encouraged each other’s reckless acts, which is aiding and abetting.
a. Court acknowledges to Abbott drag racing case, where two guys were drag racing and one killed a bystander. Both were guilty of manslaughter, even though they were adversaries in the race.
2. Perhaps important to the holding, however, was that the three acknowledged each other and sort of accepted a tacit challenge to fight it out recklessly.
a. The case would be different if one of them had been ambushed by the others and was fighting back.
iii) Two Iowa cases showing the limits of the rule
• State v. Ayers (Iowa 1991) pg 626 – ∆ sold a handgun to a 16 year old with out a permit, who later was showing it off at a party and accidentally shot and killed a friend.
1. ∆’s conviction for involuntary manslaughter (aiding and abetting) was reversed, because even though he had done something criminal, there was no showing that he and the kid had a common purpose.
• State v. Travis (Iowa App. 1993) pg. 627 – ∆ was riding on the back of his motorcycle, which he had let his inexperienced friend drive. The lights were off even though it was dusk, and they his a little girl they didn’t see until she was 4 feet away. He didn’t swerve or brake, and ∆ didn’t tell him to.
1. ∆’s conviction for involuntary manslaughter (aiding and abetting) was affirmed.
2. Court distinguished Ayers because Travis was there, and so had some measure of control over the situation, and his connection with the killer lasted right up until the killing.
3) Actus Reus
a) ∆’s aid does not have to be essential to the commission of the crime for him to be convicted as an aider and abettor as long as he aided and intended to aid. In other words, you don’t have to be a but for cause of the crime in order to be an aider and abettor.
i) Wilcox v. Jeffery (Eng. 1951) pg. 628 – Magazine publisher convicted of aiding and abetting violation of alien employment act when he attended a concert by the American Coleman Hawkins knowing it was illegal and did not protest his playing illegally.
• Distinguishes from boxing case where convictions were reversed for aiding and abetting an illegal prize fight because of no proof they were there intentionally. Here, he bought a ticket.
• Would have been different had he protested while there, but instead he clapped.
• Also seems important that he was there getting copy for his magazine, so he had a “stake in the venture.”
b) As a corollary, if ∆’s aid facilitates the commission of the crime in even a small way, he is guilty as an accomplice.
i) State v Talley (Ala. 1894) pg. 629 – Judge’s sister-in-law had been seduced by victim, and her brothers were riding to the next town to kill him. Judge went to the local telegram office and found out that one of victims relatives had sent him a message to watch out. Judge happened to know the telegram operator in the victim’s town, and sent his own message telling him not to deliver the warning message to victim. The brothers caught him and killed him.
• Even though the brothers might have killed him anyway, the judge was guilty as an accomplice because even if not essential, it facilitated the killing.
• Held that in a homicide, if the aid deprived the victim of a single chance at life, he’s guilty whether or not that chance would have saved the victim.
c) Other issues
i) Under the MPC, there is no such think an attempt to aid and abet. Accomplice liability only attaches if the principal accomplishes the crime.
ii) A person can be liable as an aider and abettor for an omission if he has a legal duty to act.
4) Derivative Liability
a) You can only be liable as an accomplice where the principal actually committed the crime, and generally you can only be liable for things the principle is liable for. Several exceptions, though:
i) The innocent agent doctrine: ∆ is liable for the conduct of an innocent or irresponsible person, if ∆, acting with the state of mind necessary for the crime itself, causes the innocent agent to engage in the criminal conduct.
• This covers the person who forces an innocent to commit a crime at gunpoint (The principal is not liable because he has a complete defense of duress).
ii) Culpable, but un-convictable, principals: Where principal would be liable but for some policy based defense, accomplice without that defense is liable.
• People v. Eberhardt (Cal. App. 1985) – Man conspired with his Native American wife to violate the fish and game laws. She was immune from prosecution as a Native American, but he was convicted of the conspiracy.
b) Remember the key difference between aiding and abetting, and conspiracy though: Aiding and abetting requires the completion of a crime. With conspiracy, the plan itself is the crime.
B. Conspiracy
1) Generally
a) The basic crime
i) NYPL 105.00: ∆ is guilty of conspiracy when with the intent that criminal conduct be performed, he agrees with one or more people to engage in or cause the performance of such conduct.
ii) Remember, conspiracy is not an inchoate crime: the plan is the crime.
• Also, unlike attempt, in the federal system, conspiracy does not merge with the completed crime You can be guilty of both, and the extra conspiracy charge both increases the sentence and gives the prosecution massive advantages at trial.
1. Under the MPC and most state laws, you can’t be convicted of both.
• Note also that conspiracy is further back in the chain than attempt, well before the substantial step or what ever is required for attempt.
iii) Punishment was traditionally unconnected to that of the planned crime, but the majority of states now make conspiracy punishable at some fixed level less than that for the completed crime.
b) Rationale for its existence
i) People are more likely to actually commit pondered crimes when they get together to plan them, so we want to deter that activity.
ii) Complements attempt laws by giving law enforcement another way to prosecute for preparatory conduct.
c) We generally need prove that
i) there is a plan
ii) ∆ is in the plan
d) Consequences of a conspiracy charge
i) Hearsay Exception: Things said among co-conspirators during the existence of the conspiracy are admissible as evidence if said in furtherance of the conspirators.
• Krulewitch v. U.S. (U.S. 1949) pg. 671 –∆ and a woman co-defendant were charged with conspiracy to induce and transport a woman from NYC to Miami for the purpose of prostitution. The prostitute told the government that a month and a half after they took her to Florida, the woman defendant told her to be careful what she said, and that it would be better for them to take thee blame than Krulewitch.
1. While normally this kind of incriminating admission by one defendant could be used against another member of the conspiracy, here the Court said it couldn’t be used against ∆ because the conspiracy had ended (they had completed the purpose of the conspiracy).
a. Prosecution urged that implicit in any conspiracy is an agreement to cover up the conspiracy, so the conspiracy continued, but the court held the conspiracy ends when its objectives are completed.
i. Note also that the statute of limitations is not tolled under the conspiracy ends.
2. Importance is that the court declined to extend the hearsay exception to incriminating statements made among the conspirators after the conspiracy had ended.
3. Jackson’s concurrence laments the expansion of the conspiracy charge and the fact that due to the hearsay exception a conspiracy often is proved by evidence that is admissible only upon assumption that the conspiracy existed.
• Notes point out that the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule applies even to “statements against penal interest,” blame-shifting statements by co-conspirators that would otherwise be inadmissible because of their self-serving nature.
• Supreme Court doctrine (from Bourjaily) is that the co-conspirator statements become admissible as soon as the judge finds by a preponderance of the evidence that the conspiracy existed, with the kicker that the judge considers the hearsay evidence itself in making the initial determination of whether there was a conspiracy.
1. If the evidence is later held inadmissible, the jury is told to disregard it.
ii) The Pinkerton Doctrine: All members of the conspiracy are liable for the criminal acts of other members in furtherance of the conspiracy.
• Pinkerton v. U.S. (1946) pg. 684 – Two guys made a plan to sell untaxed liquor, but only one did the selling. The guy who did not do the selling was liable not only for the conspiracy, but also for the substantive crimes.
1. The criminal intent is established by the formation of the conspiracy.
2. He didn’t have to have agreed to each of the later acts, in fact he was in prison when some of them occurred.
• The rule itself is uncontroversial, but in application it has been extended to include not only planned crimes, but also cries that were a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the crimes you planned.
1. State v. Bridges (N.J. 1993) pg. 687 – Idiots at a party. One is insulted, and they agree to return to the party armed in order to hold the insulter’s friends at bay while ∆ duked it out with him (this is the conspiracy). When they arrived, things got out of hand, and someone got shot (not by ∆ who was unarmed). ∆ was convicted of murder under Pinkerton.
a. Holding: A person can be liable for the substantive crimes of co-conspirators that are outside the scope of the conspiracy, if they are reasonably foreseeable as the necessary or natural consequences of the conspiracy.
b. The key difference here from Pinkerton is that there, the general nature of the substantive crimes was planned. Here, murder was not planned.
c. Dissent points out the difficulty: Not only could ∆ not be convicted of either attempted murder, or of aiding and betting murder, he couldn’t even be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. And yet he’s guilty of murder.
2. U.S. v. Alvarez (11th Cir. 1985) pg. 691 – All members of a drug conspiracy liable for murder of federal agents when an unexpected shootout occurred during a drug buy.
• Notes: A late joiner of a conspiracy is liable for the substantive crimes committed in furtherance of the conspiracy by co-conspirators prior to his joining, but Pinkerton liability is not retroactive.
• Important note: The Pinkerton doctrine is the rule in the federal courts and some state courts, but the majority of states now reject it.
1. These states follow the MPC, which recommends that a person is liable for the acts of co-conspirators only when the requirements for accomplice liability are met (aid, and intent to aid)
e) Abandonment
i) A conspiracy is generally considered abandoned when none of the conspirators is engaging in any action to further the conspiracy.
ii) Traditionally, for a particular defendant to abandon a conspiracy (and this start the statute of limitations as to himself and avoid further hearsay and Pinkerton problems), he must affirmatively announce his withdrawal to all of the other conspirators.
• Some courts have gone further and require him to also actively thwart the success of the conspiracy, but the federal courts and the MPC have abandoned that.
1. MPC makes renunciation a complete defense to conspiracy only if the circumstances manifest renunciation of the actor’s criminal purpose and he succeeded in preventing commission of the criminal objectives.
2) Actus Reus
a) An explicit agreement is not required for conspiracy liability to attach, and the existence of a conspiracy can be inferred when the alleged conspirators take action that suggests the existence of an agreement.
i) Interstate Circuit v. U.S. (1939) pg. 694 – Eight movie distributors simultaneously agreed to a price increase after receiving a letter from the only two movie chains in several cities requesting the action. For a violation of the Sherman Act to occur, the independent distributors had to have conspired together.
• The distributors never met together, but each knew that all had received the letter because all of their names were on it.
• Their taking parallel action was probative, but not definitive. What really suggests a common plan is that they were each taking an action (raising prices in a competitive market) that would be against their economic interests unless there was a common plan.
• An explicit agreement was not needed. It was enough that they knew mutual action was contemplated and invited, and they decided to participate in it.
ii) The importance of the act contrary to interests without existence of a conspiracy is shown in U.S. v. Garcia where gang members at a party were not found to be in a conspiracy to commit violence when shooting broke out. Gang members have shootouts all the time, so the court could not make the inference that there had to have been a preconceived plan in order for this to happen.
b) To be a part of a conspiracy, a person does not have to be aware of all of the details of the criminal plan. You can be found to be in the conspiracy as long as you know the general outline of the planned crime.
i) U.S. v. Alvarez (5th Cir. 1981) pg. 699 – Guy who drove some guys involved in drug smuggling to the airport on their way to pick up drugs, and who nodded yes when asked by undercover DEA agent whether he would be at the unloading site was convicted of being part of the conspiracy.
• His nod, along with statements by other conspirators that he would be there at the unloading, was sufficient evidence to convict.
• Dissent says he was just a guy doing an innocuous act who was going to jail for a long time for nodding.
c) In some cases, presence among the conspirators, along with circumstances showing that you must have been aware of the conspiracy, is enough for an inference that you’re part of the conspiracy.
i) U.S. v. Freeman (5th Cir. 1981) pg. 701 – Crew on a shrimping boat convicted of conspiracy to smuggle drugs when the captain loaded the ship with 20 tons of marijuana while they looked on.
• Factors the court says contributed to the inference of their membership included the length of the voyage, the quantity of the drugs (which made knowledge obvious), and the close relationship between captain and crew on such a boat.
• Dissent said knowledge alone and a long voyage were insufficient to establish conspiracy. What were they required to do? Mutiny or jump in the lifeboats?
3) Mens Rea
a) The intent of a supplier who knows of the criminal use of his supplies to participate in a criminal conspiracy can be established by (1) direct evidence that he intends to participate, or (2) through an inference that intends to participate based on (a) his special economic interest in the activity (b) the inherent susceptibility of the supplies to criminal use, or (c) the seriousness of the crime he knows about.
i) People v. Lauria (Cal. App. 1967) pg. 1967 – Man operating phone service used by prostitutes not liable for conspiracy with them because while he knew they were prostitutes and using his service for their business, his intent could not be inferred from that knowledge
• Three situations in which intent can be inferred from knowledge
1. He has acquired a stake in the venture
a. For example, if he was charging prostitutes an inflated price in order to get a piece of their profits.
2. There is no legitimate use for the goods or services he provided.
a. Cites case of people supplying horse-racing information over a wire because there was no use for the information other than by illegal bookies.
3. He’s getting an amount of business “grossly disproportionate” to the legitimate demand for the goods or services, or when illegitimate buyers make up a high proportion of his total clientele.
a. Example is Direct Sales case where a supplier was selling drugs to a rural doctor in 300 times the quantity he would legitimately need.
• Court says that knowledge alone can be enough (1) where the goods sold are inherently susceptible to illegal use (the drugs in Direct Sales) or (2) where he knows the goods will be used to commit a serious crime.
1. Deterrence the justification for this second part. This was the reasoning Posner picked up on in Fountain.
ii) This rule applied in problem cases on pg. 710
• Commonwealth v. Camerano (Mass. 1997) – ∆ rented land to man and let him build a fence inside of which ∆ knew he was growing marijuana. Court said no intent, so no conspiracy.
• U.S. v. Blankenship (7th Cir. 1992) – Man who leased trailer for a day for $1,000 to a man planning to use it to cook meth not guilty of conspiracy.
• U.S. v. Morse (11th Cir. 1988) – Man who sold plane with no passenger seats (ideal for drug smuggling) at a highly inflated price guilty of conspiracy.
1. This meets two of the Lauria criteria: the plane was inherently susceptible to illegal use, and he had acquired a stake in the venture.
b) Conspiracy can attach only for intentional crimes (otherwise how could there be a plan) but there is still the difficult question of whether strict liability of attendant circumstances carries over.
i) In U.S. v. Feola (1975), the supreme court said it does, in a case in which defendants conspired to assault someone they weren’t aware was a federal agent.
ii) But this is probably different where the attendant circumstances don’t just aggravate the crime, they make an otherwise innocent act a crime.
• This is basically an open question, but the thought is that in order for there to be a conspiracy, you have to know that what is planned is factually a crime.
4) Scope
a) Importance
i) Prosecutors would often prefer to convict for one large conspiracy rather one small conspiracy.
• Reason is that it brings in both the hearsay evidence and Pinkerton liability for everyone.
ii) Occasionally, they want multiple conspiracies in order to simply the cases and to get consecutive sentences for people involved in all of the smaller conspiracies.
b) Spoke Conspiracies versus Chain Conspiracies
i) Spoke Conspiracies
• Kotteakos v. U.S. (1946) pg. 714 – One guy (Brown) was working with multiple financial institutions to obtain loans with the understanding that he would use them to make fraudulent FHA filings.
1. Court finds multiple “spoke” conspiracies with Brown as the common hub, because each of the individual schemes could stand on its own, and it made no difference to each institution’s personal scheme with Brown whether he had deals with other institutions.
• In some cases that look like spoke conspiracies, the court finds a single chain because everyone is dependent on everyone else and they had to be aware of a larger conspiracy.
1. Blumenthal v. U.S. (1947) – Two men involved in a scheme to sell liquor below fixed prices each only dealt with one supplier, but the court found that they had to have known about the larger conspiracy they were a part of, and that they had state in the success of the larger conspiracy.
2. Anderson v. Superior Court (Cal. App. 1947) pg. 718 – Abortion doctor had arrangements with several people to refer women to him for abortions. ∆ was convicted of a larger conspiracy to commit abortions, and of Pinkerton liability for abortions the doctor performed on people referred by others.
a. Court said that she had to have known that he wasn’t just casually providing abortions, but that he was engaged in a business, and thus must have other co-conspirators.
ii) Chain Conspiracies
• U.S. v. Bruno (2nd Cir. 1939) pg. 718 – Drug smugglers found to be involved in one large conspiracy including middlemen and several groups of retailers because the court found that while they were on one far end of the chain, they were aware that the chain stretched to retailers, and the activity of the others was the reason why they gained from their part in the scheme.
• Note the words of Judge Friendly in U.S. v. Borelli (2nd Cir. 1964) that the spoke/chain dichotomy is not that useful when you get to people on the far ends of the chain.
1. The risk is that courts lose sight of the essential nature of a conspiracy: the agreement.
c) Just because a conspiracy has multiple objectives, that doesn’t mean it’s not one single conspiracy.
i) U.S. v. Braverman (1942) – Here defendants wanted one large conspiracy, while government wanted several small ones.
C. RICO
1) Elements of the crime -- §1962(c)
a) An enterprise
i) The Supreme Court has held that this includes not only corrupted legitimate businesses, but also purely criminal enterprises.
ii) This is to be kept distinct from the pattern of racketeering activity, however.
• U.S. v. Bledsoe tells us that it has to be something ongoing, and that it has to have some definable structure beyond the racketeering activity.
b) Pattern of racketeering activity
i) Racketeering activity: Qualifying crimes include tons of state law crimes including murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion etc. and a host of substantive federal crimes.
ii) Pattern: Must be more than two predicate crimes, but they don’t have to involve separate schemes.
• The crimes do have to be related and must pose a threat of continued criminal activity (Northwestern Bell Telephone Co.)
1. Court said the crimes are related if they have similar purposes, results, participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise related by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated events.
2. Scalia’s concurrence notes that this makes already vague statutory language even more vague.
a. Note there’s no problem with unconstitutional vagueness, however, because perpetrators have sufficient notice of the underlying crimes.
c) Conducting or participating
i) Reves v. Ernst & Young (1993) established a test that in order to be found to be “conducting or participating” the test was whether you had some role in directing or managing the business of the enterprise.
• This ruled out the accounting company, which helped overvalue assets in a cooperative.
• The test is not as exclusive as it seems, however, as it can include lower management as well.
Defenses
I. Generally
II. Justifications
A. Generally
1) A justification is a defense in which while the defendant was responsible for the act, it was the right thing to do for some reason.
B. Self-defense
1) Basic outlines of the defense
a) New York statute
i) NYPL 35.10 --
ii) NYPL 35.15(1) – May use physical force to the extent he or she reasonably believes it necessary to defend self or third person from the use or imminent use of physical force.
• NYPL 25.15(2) – May not use deadly force unless under the above conditions unless reasonably believes that the other person is using or about to use deadly physical force.
1. Even if the above is met, still can’t use deadly force if he or she knows that can retreat with complete personal safety to self and others.
2. No duty to retreat if
a. in own dwelling and not the original aggressor
b. reasonably believe the person is committing or attempting kidnapping, forcible rape, forcible criminal sexual act, or robbery
iii) In New York, the prosecution has the burden of proving that that there was no justification.
b) Four basic requirements of self defense from U.S. v. Peterson.
i) A threat, actual or apparent, of the use of deadly force against ∆
ii) The threat must be immediate
iii) Subjective belief in imminent peril of death or serious bodily harm and that responding with deadly force is necessary to save himself.
iv) The belief is objectively reasonable in light of all the surrounding circumstances.
c) People v. Goetz (N.Y. 1986) pg. 751 – White man on subway shot four black youths he thought were hassling him, though the facts make it look like a horrible overreaction, especially because he continued shooting after they were no longer a threat.
i) Important thing is that the court says the fourth prong of the Peterson test, the reasonableness of the belief, is an objective test, but one that takes into account all of the actor’s circumstances.
• Court says the circumstances to be taken into account include
1. relevant knowledge ∆ had about the other person
2. physical attributes of everyone involved
a. seems to include race, which is very controversial
3. prior experiences of ∆ that could make it reasonable for him to believe he was being robbed
a. Here, Goetz had previously been a robbery victim.
• This is a mixed test similar to that used for extreme emotional disturbance.
• Shockingly, at trial a jury found his belief reasonable and acquitted him.
ii) This case seems to have ignored an important part of the test, however:
• Not only does the actor have to reasonably believe that he or she is threatened with deadly physical force, he also has to reasonably believe that he must use deadly physical force to prevent it.
iii) New York law is based on the MPC, but different, in that a reasonable belief makes out a complete affirmative defense, while an unreasonable belief is no defense.
• Under the MPC, any sincere belief is a partial defense but if it is wrong and recklessly or negligently formed, then ∆ gets manslaughter.
• The MPC has not been influential on this, and the NY rule is followed by the majority.
2) Battered woman’s syndrome
a) State v. Kelly (N.J. 1984) pg. 763 – Woman who had been abused, including that day, stabs him with scissors.
i) Expert testimony on battered woman syndrome was admissible because it was relevant to the questions of (1) whether the defendant had a genuine belief of imminent threat and (2) whether that belief was reasonable.
• Court says that the testimony can help correct jury misconceptions about what a battered woman feels empowered to do. For example, without the testimony, a jury might ask why she didn’t just move out, but the expert testimony could help establish that a battered woman honestly doesn’t believe that’s an option.
• However, the testimony has to be framed generally, in terms of what women in her situation generally believe. It cannot be specific to her, saying that she had a reasonable belief.
ii) On retrial, after hearing the testimony, the jury convicted her because it didn’t believe she actually suffered from BWS.
3) The imminence requirement
a) State v. Norman (N.C. 1989) pg. 776 – Woman who was horribly tortured by husband (forced into prostitution, forced to eat pet food from a bowl on the floor) shot him in his sleep. The shooting came after she had gone to the authorities to sign up for welfare, and he dragged her from the office, beat her, burned her with cigarettes, and made her sleep on the floor.
i) Court said she had no self-defense justification because the threat was not imminent (b/c her husband was asleep).
• The threat may have been unavoidable (notice that she tried to go to the authorities and he found her, and that the evidence suggests he was going to kill her eventually), but unavoidable does not equal imminent.
• This is the rule: You don’t have a justification of self-defense unless the threat is imminent, not just inevitable.
ii) Some courts, such as S.C. case cited in the dissent, do treat inevitable threats as imminent, but this is a minority approach.
iii) Note also that there are some times when killing someone in his sleep would be treated as self defense, but these are unusual (kidnapping, for example, where that’s the only time your captor lets his guard down)
b) Other examples
i) State v. Schroeder (Neb. 1978) – No justification defense for prisoner who stabbed cellmate in his sleep who had threatened to sell him as a “punk” or to assault him that night.
• Dissent points out that given the credible threats and the prison cell context, ∆ had to either act or stay up all night waiting to be attacked.
ii) Ha v. State (Alaska App. 1995) – ∆ had been severely beaten by victim, who then tried to attack him several more times shouting that he would kill him. ∆ knew victim came from a murderous clan and so thought the threats were true, so he came up on victim from behind and shot him.
• Court said he probably had a reasonable fear of death from victim, but that his defense failed because of a lack of imminence.
4) Duty to retreat
a) Generally
i) Historically, U.S. jurisdictions mostly held to “true man” doctrine (if an innocent man is attacked, he should have to back down) but most now have some duty to retreat.
ii) Applies only when ∆ uses deadly force. In non-deadly force cases, no duty to retreat.
iii) Retreat is required only if you know you can escape with complete safety.
iv) All jurisdictions have a castle exception which means you don’t have to retreat from your own home.
b) State v. Abbott (N.J. 1961) pg. 1961 – Court states the above rules in case of man who hatcheted a whole family after being attacked by all three of them during an argument over their adjoining driveway.
5) Other issues
a) Defense of another
i) General rule is that a person can use deadly force in aid of a person in peril under the same circumstance as he would be justified in using it to protect himself.
b) Risk of injury to others
i) People v. Adams (Ill App. 1972) – ∆ acting in justifiable self-defense shot an killed assailant, but one of the bullets passed through the assailant and killed an innocent woman in the car with him.
• ∆ was convicted of manslaughter of the woman, but the appeals court reversed saying that while in some cases he might be liable, here he had little time to think about his options and it was dark so he couldn’t see her.
C. Protection of Property
1) NYPL 35.30 – Can use physical force when reasonably believe it necessary to thwart a crime involving damage to premises. Can use deadly force if you reasonably believe it necessary to thwart a burglary.
2) People v. Ceballos (Cal. 1974) pg. 796 – No justification defense for man who rigged up a shotgun to automatically fire at intruders while he wasn’t home after having noticed someone had been trying to break in. Two kids had been the ones messing with the lock, and one of them got shot.
a) Generally speaking, Ceballos would have had a defense had he been there and shooting. The rule is designed to allow people to make a judgment call to protect their property and themselves when someone is invading. Had he been there, he might have noticed that these were just unarmed kids.
i) “Where the actor is present, there is always the possibility he will realize that deadly force is not necessary, but deadly mechanical devices are without mercy or discretion.
b) The court also reads the statute narrowly to say that he would have been justified only if the intruders manifestly intended to commit a felony that reasonably created a fear of great bodily harm.
i) The general presumption, though, is that a burglary does create that kind of fear (but again, only if you’re actually home!)
3) The “reasonably believe” standard for when you think deadly force is necessary to thwart a burglary gives people a pretty wide margin of error, as shown by the Peairs case from Louisiana where a man shot a Japanese exchange student looking for directions to a costume party after wife screamed when he rang the door bell, and he approached after being warned because he didn’t have his glasses on to see the gun and didn’t understand English.
D. Law Enforcement
1) Resisting arrest
a) An officer can use whatever force, including deadly force, is required to subdue a suspect who is resisting arrest.
i) Durham v. State (Ind. 1927) pg. 802 – Game warden pursuing man who was fishing illegally was justified in shooting the man in the arm because the man was beating him with an oar.
• Note that this is different than self-defense, because it grows out of the duty officers have to apprehend lawbreakers.
• Were he simply fleeing, under the old, pre-Garner rule, the cop could shoot if he was a suspected felon, but not if a suspected misdemeanant.
2) Constitutional limits
a) Under the Fourth Amendment, a cop cannot use deadly force against a fleeing felon unless he has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious injury to the cop or others.
i) Tennessee v. Garner (1985) pg. 804 – Officer responding to a burglary call shot and killed fleeing burglar as he climbed over a fence in the backyard. The officer didn’t see a weapon and was reasonably sure the teen was unarmed when he shot, but Tennessee policy justified the shooting. The Court invalidated the policy as an unreasonable seizure.
• The test for when shooting a fleeing suspect would be justified is whether the officer has a reasonable belief that the suspect presents a threat of violence or has committed a violent felony (which gives an inference of a threat).
1. This could have been met had the suspect been carrying a gun.
E. Lesser Evils (The Defense of Necessity)
1) Generally
a) Statutes
i) NYPl 35.05 – Conduct which would otherwise be criminal is justified when the conduct is necessary
• as an emergency measure
• to avoid an imminent public or private injury
• which is about to occur through no fault of the actor
• and which is of such gravity that, according to ordinary standards of intelligence and morality, the injury sought to be avoided outweighs the injury sought to be protected by the statute violated.
ii) MPC § 3.02 is similar, but does not contain an imminence requirement.
• Conduct the actor believes to be necessary (not enough that he thinks it might be useful) to avoid a harm or evil to himself or someone else is justifiable if the harm he chose actually, objectively was the lesser evil (leaves open whether this is for the court or the jury).
1. No defense where there is a legislative purpose to exclude it.
• If the actor was reckless or negligent in bringing about the necessity, then he doesn’t have a defense to crimes where the requisite state of mind is recklessness or negligence.
• Commentary says that imminence is relevant under the MPC, given that genuine necessity depends on the absence of alternatives that would avoid both evils, and that where a threat is not imminent, alternatives typically exist.
1. The point was not to preclude the defense in the rare case where there is genuine necessity, but the evil sought to be avoided won’t occur until some time in the future.
• Examples of situations the defense is designed for: destroying property to prevent spread of fire, ambulances going through traffic lights, mountain climbers in a storm taking refuge and provisions in a home, a pharmacists giving drugs without prescription to alleviate an emergency.
2) Basic application
a) People v. Unger (Ill. 1977) pg. 809 – Escapee from minimum security prison who said it was either leave or get raped again had a necessity defense if the jury believed his account.
i) The (affirmative) defense of necessity in Illinois requires
• The accused be without blame in creating the necessity
• reasonable belief that his conduct was the lesser evil
ii) State argued for a higher standard for necessity defense based on the Lovercamp case. Court rejected the idea that factors from that case should be required for a defense to escape, but said they are relevant.
• Specific threat of harm in the immediate future
• No time for a complaint to authorities (or a history of futile complaints)
• No time or opportunity to resort to court
• No evidence of violence against guards or innocents during escape
• Immediate report of whereabouts to authorities once safe escape completed
3) Policy limitations on the defense
a) Borough of Southwark v. Williams (Eng. 1971) pg. 813 – No necessity defense for squatters based on their homelessness despite a severe housing shortage in London.
i) Rejection of the defense seems based mostly on a policy concern: If the defense is allowed, then anyone who’s homeless has license to barge into people’s houses.
b) Commonwealth v. Hutchins (Mass. 1991) pg. 814 – No necessity defense for man who broke marijuana laws because he needed it for therapeutic reasons. ∆’s need for the drugs was outweighed by the public harm caused by the court allowing a nullification of the drug laws.
c) Commonwealth v. Leno (Mass. 1993) pg. 813 – No necessity defense for people who violated law barring distribution of needles in an attempt to stem the spread of AIDS
i) Court says what ∆s really just had a disagreement with the legislature on policy, and that the court has to defer to the legislature rather than allow ∆s to go ahead with an attempt at jury nullification.
4) Government policy is not an evil for the purpose of a necessity defense
a) U.S. v. Schoon (9th Cir. 1992) pg 820 – Protestors charged with interfering with IRS office claiming that their actions were necessary to prevent further bloodshed in El Salvador (because American tax dollars were going to the government there).
i) Three major problems with government policy as an “evil”:
• There’s a lack of causal nexus – your unlawful act is unlikely to actually avert the asserted evil.
• There are lawful alternatives: the political process.
• This kind of harm isn’t really imminent, it’s continuing.
5) Tricky moral questions about the defense
a) When it is justifiable to take another life to save your own?
i) Recall Regina v. Dudley and Stevens where the sailors stranded at sea killed and ate the weaker cabin boy and had no necessity defense to murder.
• Tells us a couple of things
1. This may not have been a sufficiently imminent threat, when compared to a decision to divert the flood of water over someone’s house to save the village after the dam has already broken. Here it wasn’t clear that they would die before rescue if they didn’t eat him.
2. You can’t just make an arbitrary choice about who dies.
a. The law is particularly careful about protecting life, so it won’t permit a necessity defense in this situation even though their choice may have been a lesser evil in terms of the number of lives saved.
b) Should there be a necessity defense to torture?
i) Public Committee Against Torture v. Israel (1999) pg. 827 – Court holds that there cannot be a general policy allowing torture to prevent the greater evil of terrorism, but that there could be a necessity defense in criminal cases against individual agents when there was an imminent threat (the “ticking bomb”) and the torture was applied to someone who knew where it was.
• Difficulty is, by the time we find out the person tortured didn’t actually have the information, the damage is already done.
c) Euthanasia
i) Might say that the person’s suffering is an evil, so the taking of life is a lesser evil.
• Most states and the Supreme Court (in Glucksberg) have generally rejected this, but Oregon’s statute offers a different perspective.
III. Excuses
A. Generally
1) Can be total or partial defense
2) Applies when ∆ has committed a wrongful act, but has displayed some disability in his capacity to know or to choose which reduces or eliminates blame for the act.
a) Ties in with mens rea, in that a valid excuse is a defense because it indicates the lack of a guilty mind.
3) Seemingly three types of actions caused by disabilities that could give rise to excuses
a) Involuntary actions
i) The easiest cases to deal with because in a sense ∆ may not really have taken an action at all (see actus reus section, supra)
b) Deficient but reasonable actions
i) ∆ retains the power to choose, but the choice is so constrained that an ordinary, law-abiding person could not be expected to choose otherwise
• Two kinds of circumstances create these constraints
1. Cognitive deficiency
a. You don’t pick up on the facts that make your conduct criminal
2. Volitional deficiency
a. You are deprived of your will: duress
c) Irresponsible actions
i) You have some fundamental deficiency of mind that prevents you from being a responsible moral agent.
B. Duress
1) Generally
a) Key points to remember
i) Basis of the defense is that you are not culpable for the criminal act because you were forced to do it by someone else.
ii) Courts often confuse duress with necessity but the key difference is that with necessity the question is whether you chose the lesser evil, with duress the question is whether a person of reasonable firmness would have been able to resist the threat, that is, whether you reasonably had a choice at all.
• Accordingly, the duress defense is available in situations where ∆’s conduct was not the lesser evil.
• Also, while necessity is available regardless of the source of the danger, duress is available only in response to a do-it-or-else command of another person.
iii) Only threats of harm to the person are sufficient to make out a duress defense. Threats to property are presumed to be insufficient to overcome a person of reasonable firmness’ will by law.
b) NYPL 40.00
i) Duress is a complete affirmative defense where ∆ engaged in the proscribed conduct because
• he was coerced to do so by use or threatened imminent use of unlawful physical force against him or a third person
• which a person of reasonable firmness in his situation would have been unable to resist.
ii) The defense is not available where ∆ intentionally or recklessly placed himself in a situation in which it is probable that he will be subjected to duress.
• The point of this is to prevent the defense for people who enter criminal enterprise and then try to back out, only to be forced to participate.
2) Imminence of the threat
a) Some jurisdictions and the MPC do not require that a threat be imminent, but still consider imminence in the analysis.
i) State v. Toscano (N.J. 1977) pg . 845 – Chiropractor had a duress defense where he filled out false insurance forms in response to vague, but ominous threats from a gangster.
• Court said the question in New Jersey is not imminence, but whether the threatened injury induces “such a fear a man of ordinary fortitude and courage might justly yield to.”
• Court specifies that its rule applies only to crimes other than murder (which at common law allowed no duress defense).
1. MPC recommends extending it to murder, but most states reject it.
• The crime he committed is relatively minor. Even states without an imminence requirement would look for a more imminent threat where the crime coerced is more serious.
b) Most jurisdictions however (including New York) maintain a strict imminence requirement. The question there is just how imminent does threat have to be?
i) U.S. v. Fleming (1957) pg. 855 – In military case from Korean war, POW had no duress defense to charges of collaboration which he engaged in response to threats that if he didn’t do it, he would be forced to march to a camp in the North in the middle of winter with no shoes.
• Military court said the threat was not imminent enough because he didn’t wait to capitulate until he reached “the last ditch,” where he could go no further. He gave in at the mere assertion of the threat.
ii) U.S. v. Contento-Pachon (9th Cir. 1984) pg. 856 – Bogota cab driver was asked by passenger to smuggle drugs into U.S. When he said no, they told him they would kill his wife and child if he didn’t comply. He did the smuggling and got caught.
• Court said he would have a duress defense, but only if he could convince a jury he had no reasonable opportunity to escape.
1. His opportunity would have been to pack up his possessions, quit his job, and move with his wife and child somewhere they could not be found by the traffickers. The defense would depend on whether a jury believed that was a reasonable opportunity to escape.
iii) Regina v. Ruzic (1998) p. 857 – Woman said she was compelled to smuggle heroin into Canada by paramilitaries in her native Belgrade. Court rejected the imminence requirement and said that if situationally she believed it would be carried out, then she has a defense because she is not culpable.
C. Intoxication
1) Doctrine
a) General rule
i) Voluntary intoxication is no defense
ii) Involuntary is a defense only where it creates a condition at the time of the crime that meets the test for legal insanity.
b) NYPL 15.25 – Intoxication is not in itself a defense, but it can be relevant if it negates the requisite state of mind of an element of the crime.
i) Under this rule, intoxication is just a question of fact that may suggest ∆ was acting only recklessly when the crime charged requires intent.
c) Regina v. Kingston (Eng. 1994) pg. 861 – Man was lured to an apartment and probably drugged and he then engaged in sex with an underage boy (he was being taped).
i) Lower court said he had a defense because the involuntary intoxication negatived the intent required for the crime.
ii) House of Lords reversed, saying that he had the intent before being drugged – the drugging just reduced his resistance to actually doing the act.
iii) Court cites policy reasons for the rule
• It’s wholly subjective
• It’s difficult to prove what drug he took, its effect, his state of mind without the drug
• Creates an avenue for spurious defenses.
iv) The intoxication could be a relevant factor in sentencing
v) Similar is Roberts v. People (Mich. 1870) pg. 864 – Where piss-drunk man shot another man, the relevant question is whether he was so drunk that he was incapable of forming intent (a factual question).
• If he had the intent, it is irrelevant whether he wouldn’t have done it had he not been drunk.
2) California and NJ cases of Hood and Stasio: In both states, the rule now is that intoxication evidence can be considered on questions of purpose or knowledge (specific intent), but not on recklessness or negligence (general intent).
D. Insanity
1) The Doctrine
a) The M’Naghten Rule (1843)
i) Rebuttable presumption in all cases of sanity and sufficient reason to be responsible for crimes (burden on ∆ in every case)
ii) ∆ must clearly prove that at the time of the act he had a defect of reason due to a disease of the mind that prevented him from knowing
• the nature and quality of the act he was committing, or
• that what he was doing was wrong.
b) Under MPC 4.01, defendant must prove only a lack of substantial capacity to either appreciate the criminality (wrongfulness) of his conduct or to conform his conduct to the requirements of the law.
i) Our cases show adoption of the first prong (lack of substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongness – the “cognitive” prong) but rejection of the second prong (self control)
• Blake v. U.S. (5th Cir. 1969) – Conviction for bank robbery reversed and remanded where court used overly restrictive conception of the insanity defense calling for complete lack of mental capacity
1. Adopts the MPC approach, with the slight change that capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness, not the criminality, of the act is the question.
a. Court says this change broadens defense to cover actions ∆ knew to be criminal, but delusionally believed to be morally justified.
b. The assessment of substantiality is for the jury, with the help of expert and lay testimony.
2. Rejects older standard based on SCOTUS case U.S. v. Davis which set an all or nothing standard (no insanity defense without a complete lack of capacity)
3. On the facts of this case (conflicting psychiatric experts, bizarre behavior on the day of crime, history of psychiatric issues) ∆ had no defense under Davis, but might have one under the MPC.
• Commentaries to Sec. 4.01 say the people excluded from criminal punishment by M’Naghten are properly excluded, but this only covers the extreme. There are people nearer to the line who must also be excluded.
1. Defines “substantial” as “a capacity of some appreciable magnitude when measured by the standard of humanity in general” which is less than what results from “the most severe afflictions of the mind”
2. Note that people excused from criminal punishment still need to be restrained, but they should be free from condemnation.
• U.S. v. Lyons (5th Cir. 1984) – ∆ allowed to introduce evidence that drug addiction had physically changed his brain to leave him without self control, but said that the volitional prong of the test would no longer be available.
1. Insanity defense no longer available on the grounds that ∆ lacked substantial capacity to control his actions
2. Rationales
a. Contemporary psychiatric view that no objective way to measure the impairment of capacity for self-control.
b. High risk of fabrication and “moral mistakes” where experts and jurors are asked to speculate on whether ∆ could have resisted a criminal impulse
c. Testimony in this area likely to confuse jurors
d. Largely unnecessary because most psychotic people would fail the cognitive test (capacity to appreciate) anyway.
e. Murky science makes proof beyond reasonable doubt nearly impossible.
3. Dissent: We traditionally only punish people who had a free choice between right and wrong, and chose wrong. This new rule immorally sweeps in people who had no choice on the grounds of evidentiary problems.
a. Cites statistics showing that concerns about abuse of the defense are overblown because it so rarely works and because when it does work, ∆ is almost always confined in hospital.
b. Accuses the majority of giving into the popular objection to the defense that “guilty people go free” which misunderstands the concept of guilt.
4. This restriction codified by statute in federal law in 18 U.S.C. § 17(a), which also went back to a sort of M’Naghten formula “unable to appreciate”
c) NYPL 40.15 adopts an MPC version of M’Naghten
i) Insanity defense applies when as a result of mental disease or defect he lacked the substantial capacity to know or appreciate
• The nature and consequences of his conduct, or
• That such conduct was wrong
ii) Like most jurisdictions, rejects the “ability to control one’s actions” prong of the MPC.
2) Other issues in the insanity defense
a) The meaning of “wrong”
i) Jurisdictions are split on whether this means “legal wrong” or “moral wrong”
• This distinction is important in cases where a defendant know his actions are illegal, but still thinks they are morally justified.
• In jurisdictions that go with “moral wrong,” however, it’s societal morals, not ∆’s individual morals, that the test is based on (it’s an objective test).
ii) The general test is whether you appreciate that what you’re doing is illegal (and whether the law has any hope of deterring you).
iii) State v. Crenshaw (Wash. 1983) – Insanity defense rejected where defendant argued he could not appreciate right from wrong because in his religion it was a man’s duty to kill his wife if she was being unfaithful.
• Court says in Washington the test is legal wrong, because this rule captures more people who could be deterred.
• But also says instruction correct because here legal wrong is equal to moral wrong, when morality is judged as that of society as a whole.
1. Court cites an exception to the societal standard rule for where a person with a mental defect knows an act is criminal but believes god has told her to do it, but says Crenshaw doesn’t qualify because he was acting under a general alternative moral code, not a specific “deific decree”
a. Likens it to a cult that makes human sacrifice as a duty.
b) The meaning of “mental disease or defect”
i) State v. Guido (N.J 1993) – In case where wife shot husband, court reversed conviction because prosecutors were allowed to blast defense experts for altering a report on ∆’s sanity. The court said they weren’t doing anything untoward, they were simply reflecting the general difficulty that we don’t know exactly what is meant in M’Naghten by “mental disease or defect.”
• The thing to keep in mind is that the insanity defense isn’t really about insanity in the medical sense. It’s a legal formulation.
• The bottom-line question is one of blameworthiness: Did he appreciate what he did. Medical evidence is useful, but not dispositive.
ii) Psychopaths
• MPC 4.01(2) (the “caveat paragraph”) says no defense based on psychopathic personality.
1. A concern may be that we have no way to treat true psychopaths, and so they shouldn’t avoid punishment.
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